


A Touch of Thramsay

by VagrantWriter



Series: Reader Requests [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Anal Plug, Bondage, Drugged Sex, Emotional Manipulation, Femslash, Forced Crossdressing, Gender or Sex Swap, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mild Gore, Object Insertion, Public Humiliation, Serial Killers, Seriously messed up shit in here, Slut Shaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-18 13:59:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 27,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5930959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VagrantWriter/pseuds/VagrantWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of reader requests and prompts.</p><p>Ch. 1 Washed Out: Ramsay and the Boys find a way to entertain themselves on a rainy day.<br/>Ch. 2 Trained: Damon and Ramsay disagree on dog-training methods.<br/>Ch. 3 Tied: Rawley is a thoughtful girlfriend.<br/>Ch. 4 Covered: Ramsay wants Theon to wear something special to a fancy party.<br/>Ch. 5 Guarded: Domeric is not pleased with Ramsay's treatment of their prisoner.<br/>Ch. 6 Prepared: Ramsay has a challenge for Theon.<br/>Ch. 7 Reunited: Reek and Ramsay are reunited.<br/>Ch. 8 Engaged: Ramsay helps Theon celebrate his engagement.<br/>Ch. 9 Imparted: Roose uses Reek as a teaching aid for Ramsay.<br/>Ch. 10 Forgiven: Theon is suspicious of Ramsay's apology.<br/>Ch. 11 Collected: The Starks find themselves in a horror movie.<br/>Ch. 12 Convinced: Ramsay just wants to talk, that's all.<br/>Ch. 13 Eased: Reek and Ramsay are parted.<br/>Ch. 14 (Un)Moved: Reek gets new living quarters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Washed Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TrueOrFalse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrueOrFalse/gifts).



> Vagrant_shipper said:
> 
> _I'd love to see something involving Reek, Ramsay, and Damon, maybe something like Reek's first time giving head? Broken teeth, public humiliation, object insertion, etc. are all fine._

“Run, Reek, run!”

There was a sob and then the stumbling of feet as Reek picked up his speed. Ramsay saw a flash of white as Reek turned and disappeared up one of the spiraling staircases. That was definitely not the way out, but in his panicked little mind, Reek was probably only thinking, _Dungeons down; escape up_.

“Ah,” Ramsay crowed as he followed with no particular hurry, “my blushing bride is doing so well.”

It looked like he could still eke some use out of Donella Hornwood yet. Her wedding dress had been lying around in some dusty old chest since the bitch had died. Turned out it was a perfect fit for Reek. Too perfect. Ramsay had looked forward to breaking ribs to get the bodice to fit, but it hadn’t been necessary. Reek had still cried the whole time they’d stuffed him into it, but it was either that or play their little game about the castle completely naked. If Reek had any brains left in him, he would have taken the latter option. Then, at least, he wouldn’t have the billowing skirts and trailing train to trip over.

Ah well, it wasn’t as if he stood any sort of chance either way. This wasn’t an exercise in sportsmanship, after all.

Ramsay began at a leisurely pace up the steps, following the piteous sounds of his pet’s crying. “You mustn’t be nervous, my dear,” he called up. The absolutely gleeful note in his voice echoed off the stones, and he wished he had a little more control of himself. He was just so eager. “I promise to see to your every need on this, our wedding night.”

Reek was having a hard time running, and Ramsay was having a hard time keeping his slow and steady pace.

There came a soft “oompf” followed by the sounds of struggle. Ramsay’s heart swelled, and he skipped up the last few steps to see who had finally captured their prey. It was Damon, hands wrapped around Reek’s wrists as Reek kicked and fought back, weakened from weeks in the dungeons, but not broken.

“Feisty one,” Damon said, holding Reek out at arm’s length.

“Let go of me!” Reek shrieked. “You can’t do this to me. I am Theon Greyjoy, heir to the Iron Islands.” He’d been screaming the same thing ever since he’d come to in the dungeons, only now, instead of the arrogance that had already lost him several fingernails, there was only desperate pleading in his voice. No matter how he tried to dress it up.

Speaking of which…

Lady Hornwood’s dress fit, but by no means perfectly. It hung off his bony shoulders, having come loose in all the struggling. If Reek were a woman, his tits would be hanging out, instead of just his scrawny chest, showing delicious flashes of slowly healing wounds. Even Lady Hornwood had had wider hips than him, and her dress draped like an empty sheet over him. He’d managed to tear the skirt all the way up to his thigh on one side. The hem and train were absolutely filthy, and the dress itself could no longer said to be white, what with all of Reek’s dirt caked on it.

He looked precious and terrified, caught in Damon’s grip like that. Like an offering. Well, they did call it a wedding altar after all.

Ramsay came forward and cupped Reek’s face between his hands with infinite care, momentarily stilling his movements. “My, you look ravishing.”

Reek’s nostrils flared and he shook his head. “You can’t…what are you going to do?”

As if he didn’t already know.

More footsteps on the stairs informed them the other boys had finally caught up, no doubt drawn by all the noise. Reek was ironically alerting them to his location with all this protesting, which wouldn’t do him any good in the end anyway.

“Over already?” Skinner muttered, the first one up. “That was hardly a hunt at all.”

“What do you expect on a rainy day?” Sour Alyn said, casting his eyes to the window. “I’m impressed he managed this long.”

Yellow Dick said nothing, as, obviously, did Grunt.

Luton appeared from the opposite way from down the hall. “What are we waiting for?” he bitched. He was probably just upset because Damon had managed to ambush Reek first. Well, if he wanted to enjoy the spoils of the hunt first, he should have staked out his claim more wisely.

“We’re waiting for _you_ to get your sorry ass over here so we can start,” Dick said.

“I think it’s _his_ ass that’s going to be sorry,” Skinner snickered, nodding towards Reek, who had renewed his struggling. “If it isn’t already. I’m surprised he managed to run with that thing in. Can’t possibly be your first time taking anything up the arse.” He reached playfully for the folds of the dress, and Reek kicked out. Skinner drew back with a mocking cry of alarm. “Oh-ho. I don’t think your bride is much of a virgin, Ramsay.”

“Enough yammering,” Ramsay said, and there was the gleefulness again. He really should have more control over his own voice. “Damon, since you won, would you do the honors?”

“What?” Damon looked around the hall expectantly. “Right here?”

“Aw, don’t tell me you’re having performance anxieties.”

Damon grunted in disgust and began wrestling Reek to the ground. Reek howled and fought like a cat, clawing out, though he’d been declawed and had nothing to scratch Damon’s eyes out with. “No, no, you can’t do this. You can’t. I am Ironborn. I am a Prince. You can’t—”

Damon punched him in the face. Blood spurted from his nose and lip and ran down his chin to stain the dress. Tears swam in his big blue eyes as he was wrestled the rest of the way to the cold, hard stones.

“Please…”

Damon released his hold on one of Reek’s wrists so that he could rip the dress down the length of the bodice. Reek’s breathing hitched as the tatters slid from his body. The last few weeks in the dungeons had given his body a hungry look; Ramsay could count his ribs from the distance he was standing, watching. He found himself growing harder the more skin Damon exposed: the cuts, the bruises, the burn mark where they’d taken a hot poker to his side. And yet Theon Greyjoy’s body was a canvas Ramsay had not yet begun to work on in earnest.

“Please,” Reek repeated. “I-I’ll give you anything you want. G-gold? You want gold? Whatever _he_ pays you, my father can double it. He can give you titles, land. You can have your own island, a castle full of servants. Wh-whatever you can think of. Just…please don’t…”

And here he started again, as if he hadn’t already promised them everything under the sun already. He tended to break down in stages: fear, defiance, anger and indignation, fear again, pleading, and finally, acceptance. The pleading could go on for a while, though. It was fun for a little bit, but it got old fast.

Damon grabbed hold of Reek’s hair and yanked him forwards. “Shut up,” he snarled.

“Why don’t you shut him up yourself, Damon?” Skinner suggested. “Think your cock’s big enough to plug his big mouth?”

“Nobody’s cock is that big,” Dick said.

Damon gave a frustrated grunt as Reek continued to thrash in his grasp. “Would somebody hold him while I get my dick out?”

Skinner volunteered, but it actually took Luton’s help for the two of them to wrestle him into a half-sitting position on his knees. All the while, Reek blubbered and pleaded and ran his mouth. He fell into wordless sobbing when Damon managed to finally free his dick.

“Hard already?” Luton smirked. “Are you really that eager to fuck Ramsay’s pet?”

“It’s the dress,” Damon said, to the merriment of the others. “There’s just something about a new bride, y’know.”

Ramsay laughed along, but he was glad to see he wasn’t the only one who’d gotten hard from their little game. His own dick was straining painfully against his breeches, but he was content to stand by and watch. For now.

Skinner shoved Reek onto his hands and knees so that he was eye-level with Damon’s dick. Reek stared in mute horror for a moment, then quickly looked away, hanging his head and shaking it in furious denial. “No, no, I won’t, I won’t…”

Damon grabbed Reek’s hair again and pulled his head up so harshly that Reek yelped. “This your first time sucking cock, sweetheart?” Damon said. “There’s nothing to it, really. Just open your Gods-damned mouth and try not to use your teeth.”

“Tell us if you feel teeth, Damon,” Yellow Dick said. “I’ll pull out one of his teeth for every time he gets lazy.”

“And Gods help you if you _bite_ ,” Damon added. “Now, open up.”

Reek shook his head. His face was a mess of tears, sweat, snot, and blood. Everything red and swollen. He kept his lips closed in terrified defiance.

“Open. Your. Mouth.”

“I can’t,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Can’t open your mouth? Then, here, let me help you.” One hand still in Reek’s hair, Damon used his other hand to part Reek’s lips and wriggle several fingers between the clenched teeth. Reek fought it. Luton and Skinner had to redouble their efforts, as he nearly bucked them off a time or two. It took much longer than it should have for Damon to pry his jaws open. “See this? I’m counting _this_ as teeth already. You keeping track, Dick?”

Reek readied to bite down; Ramsay could see it in the way the muscles in his jaw twitched. Ramsay could practically see inside his little head. _Let them do their worst. Better to go down fighting than to give in_. Idiot.

The second before he did, though, his eyes flickered over to Ramsay, as they almost always did when he was uncertain. Ramsay knew Reek could feel it, even if he didn’t acknowledge it. There was a tether connecting the two of them. Fate, maybe. Certainly Theon Greyjoy hadn’t been _born_ knowing he was meant to belong to Ramsay.

He knew it now.

As his eyes met Ramsay’s, he froze. His throat bobbed. His pupils shimmered behind a veil of tears. He loosened his jaw and opened his mouth wide for Damon. His eyes clenched closed as Damon rammed in. His throat bobbed again, the other direction this time, and Ramsay knew Damon had hit his gag reflex. He swallowed it down and wrapped his lips around Damon’s girth, eyes still locked shut.

The Boys cheered and laughed as Damon bucked his hips and Reek choked and sputtered. He tried to pull away, but Damon’s hand was still in his hair, forcing himself further down the throat. “I felt teeth,” Damon announced, and Reek gave a truly pitiful moan in response.

Ramsay couldn’t stand it a second longer. He pushed his way past Skinner and Luton, grabbed the ruined skirt and hiked it up to Reek’s thighs. He exposed the redness of Reek’s abused hole and reached for the awl handle they’d worked inside earlier. Reek made a noise of distress, but Damon continued to keep him in place.

“I told you you’d be thankful for this later,” Ramsay said as he pulled it out, blunted end drawing free with an obscene pop. “Now you’re all nice and open for your wedding night.”

Reek made another muffled whine around Damon’s cock. Maybe he would tell himself later that he had fought tooth and nail—heh, funny because he’d lost both. Maybe, after they’d locked him up for the night, he’d convince himself that he was still Theon Greyjoy, heir to the Iron Islands, and that there was still someone out there who cared enough about him to avenge him.

It would take time for him to learn the truth of things, just like it had taken time for him to learn that Ramsay owned him. Ramsay drove this home by driving into him. Reek shrieked.

Outside, fat pellets of rain beat against the window.

Skinner elbowed Luton. “And you said today was going to be a wash-out.”


	2. Trained

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karen requested: 
> 
> _How about a one-shot where Damon rapes Reek in the kennels behind Ramsay's back and Ramsay catches him at it? I'd love if it was told from Reek's POV also._
> 
> Additional warning for pseudo-bestiality. What does that mean? Read and find out.
> 
> Also, Ramsay is not a trained medical professional, but that goes without saying. I hope. 0_o

There was a weight on his back and a fist in his hair, keeping his head level with the dog in the next kennel. Kyra snarled and threw herself at the bars. She didn’t like anyone touching him; she guarded her master’s property vigilantly. It was driving her wild being locked in an unable to act. Reek could sympathize with her helplessness, the feeling of being penned in and pinned down.

The weight on his back increased, and he wailed when Damon entered him. It always hurt. It was meant to hurt.

Kyra barked and lunged. The bars rattled and bowed outwards against her efforts.

“Shut the fuck up,” Damon hissed, “both of you.” He gave a sharp tug to Reek’s hair. A fistful came right out, and Damon tossed it aside with a disgusted grunt. “You sound more like a bitch in heat than the _actual_ bitch in heat.”

Damon was an idiot if he thought that was the reason for Kyra’s barking.

Reek fought against the inescapable yet familiar pain by forcing his attention on her. He took comfort in knowing that she would help him, if she could, just like her namesake. Just like the woman who’d died fighting back against the man who was violating him now, among others. Her death had been agonizing, but quick. It hadn’t _felt_ like it at that time, but that was only because back then, Reek hadn’t had any concept of what eternity actually was. _This_ , right here, was eternity. Kyra’s name lived on in this dog, while Reek struggled to even remember his as the days passed and bled into one another.

Damon slapped a hand over Reek’s mouth to silence his mewling. The roughness of frayed bandages brushed against Reek’s face. “See that, you little cocksucker?” Damon prompted. “Remember when you did that to me? I hope it was worth it to get a bite in.”

It really wasn’t. His broken and shattered teeth still pained him, even a week after the fact. But he did take a certain satisfaction that the rot in his mouth had caused the bite wound to become infected. Perhaps Damon would think twice before stuffing his fingers in there again.

“You act like a bitch”—Damon gave a particularly brutal thrust. Reek screamed against the hand over his mouth — “I fuck you like a bitch.”

Reek offered a muffled protest.

Kyra continued to bark and clash against the barrier separating them.

“I have to say”—another thrust —“I’m almost impressed you’ve got any fight _left_ in you. Spoiled cunt like you”—another thrust —“thought we’d have broken you in by now. _Taught you your place_.”

“What’s going on in here?”

Kyra’s barking stopped.

The kennel door swung open on rusted hinges, and in an instant Damon was off of him, _out_ of him. He’d taken a bit of Reek’s insides with him. It was painful, but mostly just uncomfortable, being pulled _inside out_ like that, and it was preferable to having Damon’s cock tearing at his insides. Wincing, Reeked rolled onto his side to see who had saved him.

Ramsay was backlit by the early morning sun pouring in from outside. Reek could hear and see people passing back and forth out in the open, everyone going about their tasks as usual, no one caring that he was in here. No use calling out to them for help. Kyra was the last human who’d given a shit about him, and look where that had got her.

Behind Ramsay, Ben Bones leaned against the wall and watched with eyes half-lidded in amusement. Reek should have felt shamed by their gazes on his body and its state of degradation, pants around his knees and legs covered in blood, but he was only terribly relieved.

Damon fumbled to get his own pants up as Ramsay stooped to join them in the kennel. “Ben told me the dogs were making a ruckus, said he thought a critter had gotten in with them.”

Damon shot an ugly look at Ben.

“Well…?” Ramsay prompted, spreading his arms wide as if welcoming an explanation. “What’s going on?”

“I was teaching him a lesson,” Damon mumbled.

Ramsay nodded in understanding. “I see. And who gave you permission to _teach_ this lesson?”

Damon’s jaw worked uselessly for a moment or so. He thrust out his bandaged hand. “He bit me!”

“And fucking him behind my back was your only recourse?”

“I told him, if he’s going to act like a bitch, I’m going to fuck him like one.”

Ramsay scratched his chin in thought and turned to Ben. “Ben, you’ve been training dogs longer than any of us have been alive. How do you teach a dog not to bite?”

“Swift punishment,” Ben answered promptly, standing up straight. “Dogs are dull animals. If you don’t discipline ‘em the moment they step out of line, they won’t learn a thing.”

“I see. So…you wouldn’t recommend fucking them a week later to teach them proper behavior?”

“I wouldn’t recommend fucking them at all. They’re dogs.”

Damon sputtered in indignation. “That’s not—”

“Oh,” Ramsay interrupted, “you think you know better than our kennel master? Then by all means…” He stepped aside to usher Damon from the cell. “Grace us with your tried and true wisdom.” Damon had little choice, and he looked like he expected a trap as he allowed Ramsay to lead him out into the open. “Ben was just telling me about how Kyra’s been having difficulty training.”

In the cage over, Kyra snarled and bared her teeth at Damon.

“So I was thinking, perhaps you’d like to try this new training technique of yours on her.” He walked over to Kyra’s kennel and undid the latch. “Perhaps you’d like to fuck some manners into her?”

Damon looked at Kyra. She had not lowered her hackles.

“I don’t—”

“I insist,” Ramsay said. “Show Ben how it’s done.”

Damon crept towards the adjacent kennel, looking like a beaten cur himself. He lifted his head and began one more protest. “I wasn’t g—”

“Get in there,” Ramsay said, “before I have to train some discipline into _you_ as well.”

The hard look on his face left no room for protest. He held the kennel open a crack so that Damon could slip in.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure you can get hard again quickly. After all, I did interrupt your earlier lesson.” He slammed the door closed and snapped the lock shut. “Go ahead and give her a good fucking.”

Reek was at just the right position to see Kyra lunge at Damon, grabbing hold of his arm with her massive jaws. Damon yelled and tried to shake her off, but she jumped up on him and brought him toppling over. Reek watched with his cheek pressed to the ground, the entire world tilted at an odd angle. A stripe of blood fell across the floor and into his cage.

“Huh,” Ramsay scoffed, “I guess it only works when my back is turned.”

Kyra continued to tear at Damon, even as he curled in on himself to protect his belly. He yelling turned to painful screams.

The only thing that could have dragged Reek’s attention away was Ramsay’s presence at his side. A cold hand slid along his jaw, comforting almost. “My poor Reek. You were not prepared for an unannounced lesson, were you?”

Reek shook his head.

“Damon overstepped his boundaries.”

Reek nodded.

“Looks like he tore you up a bit.” Ramsay’s other hand ran down his back. A freezing cold finger circled his entrance then popped inside, pushing his outsides back in. Reek gritted his teeth but took it. “There. Nothing to worry the maester over.”

“Thank you,” Reek whimpered. Who said he hadn’t been taught his place?

Ramsay beamed.

In the kennel over, Damon continued to scream.


	3. Tied

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Courtney asked:
> 
> _Are you down for modern AU lesbian Thramsay where Ramsay is viciously and violently abusive to Thea (who is terrified of her) and Ramsay comes home from a long day of "work" to where she's kept Thea tied to the bed, blindfolded and gagged, waiting for her?_
> 
> I most certainly am.
> 
> Using the same name for fem!Ramsay as I did in my previous story, [The Bitch of Bolton](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3378365).

“I’m home!” Rawley called.

She heard the muffled response from the bedroom and knew that she’d been missed. She kicked the front door closed behind her and hurried to hang up her jacket. It was so good to come home, where she was wanted.

“Sorry I was late,” she continued, stopping to check herself in the bathroom mirror.

Her hair was a mess, and she wore the stress of the day in the lines of her face. Ah well, Thea didn’t care about any of that. Thea would love Rawley no matter what. She’d said so herself. Still, Rawley ran a brush through her hair, trying to tame the dark locks into a semblance of order. She was such a thoughtful girlfriend.

“I got held up by my father. Apparently he’s going to go ahead with marrying that bimbo Walda. The man doesn’t know a gold digger when he’s fucking one. Or maybe he does and just doesn’t care," she mused. "I guess not everyone can have a love as pure and beautiful as ours.”

Thea agreed with a loud, drawn-out moan.

Rawley couldn’t contain herself anymore. She dropped the brush on the counter with a loud clank and tiptoed eagerly across the hall. Hands on the doorframe, she leaned in to see Thea exactly where she’d left her: hands and feet cuffed to the four-poster bedframe, gagged, blindfolded. Her taught body shuddered under a thin sheen of sweat, and the muscles in her belly and thighs spasmed from weakness. Rawley felt her heart spasming too.

“What a wonderful surprise to come home to,” she murmured, coming over to sit on the side of the bed. She ran a hand along Thea’s smooth cheek, feeling the dampness of tears under the blindfold. “You didn’t have to do all this for little old me.”

Thea shook her head, long dark hair falling over her face and shoulders. Rawley brushed a tendril from her chest and then couldn’t stop herself from giving a rough pinch to one of the pink nipples on Thea’s small but shapely breast. Thea jerked and strained against the cuffs. They weren’t padded cuffs; she’d managed to really chaff her skin on the cold, hard metal.

“Your body’s so sensitive.” Rawley climbed onto the bed and straddled Thea’s thin hips. Thea had always been thin, even when Rawley had first laid eyes on her as the boy-chasing party girl she pretended to be. She was even thinner now—now that she could be her _real_ self—because she liked to keep her figure for Rawley, liked to make her girlfriend happy. Rawley liked to make her girlfriend happy too. She licked the neglected nipple and blew cool air onto it to watch the bud harden. Thea thrashed in ecstasy. “How long have you been waiting here for me to get you off?”

She reached down between the spread open legs, curly, dark hair down there trimmed with immaculate care. Another way her girlfriend spoiled her. Rawley slipped two fingers between Thea’s lips and rubbed, and frowned when she didn’t feel the wetness she’d expected. She probed inside, just to make sure, and yes, the egg was still in there. Perhaps the battery had died? She yanked it out with a loud pop that had Thea jumping and thrusting her hips uselessly into the air.

“Too long,” she answered her own question. “Did you orgasm without me?”

Thea shook her head.

“Are you lying?” Rawley bent her head and buried her nose in Thea’s pubic hair, smelling for residual dampness. “I can tell if you’re lying.”

Thea shook her head even harder. Her mouth was trying to work words around the gag.

With a sigh, Rawley crawled back up her body, reached around Thea’s head, and undid the clasp. The ball gag came away drenched in saliva, which ran down her chin and onto her chest, wanton little slut. Thea gasped. “Please, Rawls, you said it would only be for a little bit. You _promised_ this time!”

Rawley shoved the gag back in and pulled the clasp as tight as it would go. Thea squealed as her lips were pulled tight.

“You know, I work so hard, day in and day out. And when I come home, I _expect_ a little bit of sympathy. But what do I get instead? Complaining, complaining, and more complaining. You haven’t even asked me how my day went.”

Thea tried to say something. She was always trying to apologize _after_ the fact. Selfish bitch.

“You know, you’re lucky I put up with your shit.” Rawley stood up. “Maybe I should give you some time to reevaluate the way you’re acting.”

Thea shook her head frantically.

Rawley still held the egg in her hand. She tried the switch and was pleased to find that battery hadn’t run down at all. Thea must have found a way to turn it off, like the sneaky little whore she was. Rawley cranked it to its highest setting and shoved it back into its proper place. Thea squealed and Rawley made a note to buy a second egg, see how loud her bitchslutwhore girlfriend would squeal with her ass plugged as well.

“We’ll continue this discussion later, when you’re ready to behave like a person. When I get back, the first words I want out of your mouth are, ‘Please may I make it up to you with my tongue?’”

Thea gave a desperate, muffled approximation of the phrase, but too little too late. Rawley stomped out of the room and slammed the door on Thea’s pitiful whimpering.


	4. Covered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For SabrinaC:
> 
> _I have a weakness for a handsome, well-dressed, arrogant and slutty pre-Reek Theon humiliated by Ramsay (especially in modern AU), so how about a story where he's forced to wear the collar and/or anal plugs under a nice tailored suit? I have also a soft spot for slut-shaming, dirty talk and public humiliation...I am the worst, I know XD_
> 
> Trust me, you are far from the worst. Hope you enjoy.

Theon adjusted his tie for the umpteenth time, but it was no good. It wasn’t the _tie_ that was choking off his air; it was the collar underneath, a thin strip of leather with a dog tag that Theon swore alerted everyone to his presence with its jingling alone. Still, he fixed his shirt collar because he couldn’t fix the dog collar, and because he didn’t dare try to fix the _other_ issue.

He glanced around the ballroom again. Nobody had said anything, but there was no way they _couldn’t_ tell. A group of three girls—Robb’s classmates, he was pretty sure he’d never fucked any of them—looked his way, then turned back to each other and giggled. _They knew_. One of them turned and offered him a wink.

Panicked, Theon nearly dropped his champagne is his hurry to get out of there. He couldn’t run, but he couldn’t really walk either. He saw Robb shoot him a concerned glance from the serving table, but Jeyne put a hand on his arm to draw his attention back to whatever conversation they were having. That was for the best.

Theon took his chance to slip into the bathroom, where he braced himself against the sink and waited for the lone occupant to finish using the urinal. Once he was gone, Theon dodged into the single closed-in stall, dropped his pants, and reached around for the plug’s handle. He couldn’t stand it anymore, not one more second. He pulled on it, but it didn’t come out easily. He ended up having to wiggle it out, all the while shuddering against the feeling. When he was done, he had a four-inch-long black anal plug in his hand. The tapered end was one and a half inches wide at the base, and Theon could feel every centimeter of it when it was in him.

Ramsay wouldn’t know that he’d taken it out. He couldn’t possibly.

But what to do with the plug now? He could stuff it into the pocket of his suit, but not before washing it off. He opened the stall, looked around to make sure he was alone, and made his way back to the row of sinks. The plug left a phantom sensation in his ass, and he was hyper-aware of the bowlegged way he sidled up to the nearest sink.

As he waited for the water to run warm, he looked up into the mirror. Yeah, he was definitely salvageable. If he fixed himself up a bit, nobody would ever suspect a thing. His suit was immaculate, for one, a black three-piece number he’d had tailor-made when he thought he’d be taking over the company for his father. It was meant to impress, to accentuate his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist—women loved a swimmer’s body. Perhaps the gold tie was a bit much for this occasion—it was only Robb’s graduation party, after all—but Theon had wanted to show it off. And anyway, that was the tie he’d chosen before Ramsay had sprung his little surprise on him, and now it felt more like a leash than any sort of status symbol. Or the wrong kind of status symbol.

Theon finished washing the plug and reached for the paper towels, the cheap kind you had to tear yourself—stingy for such a seemingly fancy place. He tore a small one off and used it to cushion the plug on the counter while he took a fistful of towels to clean up the evidence he’d left in the sink. He felt sick at the thought of anyone coming in after him and knowing he’d been the one to leave this mess.

The door behind him swung open, and he reached for the plug, stuffing it into his pocket, still wet. His heart catapulted up into his throat as he caught sight of the looming shape of Ramsay in the mirror. “Just wanted to make sure you were alright,” Ramsay said, coming up behind him. He didn’t need to even try to pin him in. “Robb’s been asking after you.”

Theon gripped the sides of the sink. “I’m fine. Just needed to take care of something.”

“Mm-hmm.” Ramsay reached around and slid a hand into Theon’s pocket. “And here I thought you were just happy to see me.” He pulled the plug out, and Theon kept his eyes focused on the drain in the sink. “Who gave you permission to take this out?”

“I-I wasn’t—I just—”

“What part of ‘all night’ is so hard for you to understand?”

Theon didn’t look up, even when he felt Ramsay’s hand pulling down his pants.

Theon gritted his teeth. “Please, it’s too distracting. I just want to enjoy the party.”

“I don’t know about you, but _I’m_ enjoying myself immensely.”

His tailored pants and expensive leather belt fell to the floor, which had to be filthy. Theon shuddered as Ramsay began to press the plug back in.

“If you didn’t want it to go in dry, you shouldn’t have rinsed all the lube off,” Ramsay said. “Now stop squirming and take it like the good little whore you are.”

“Please stop,” Theon said, face burning. “It hurts.”

“It doesn’t hurt, it’s just uncomfortable.” Ramsay popped the thickest part in past the protesting ring of muscles and gave a teasing yank on the handle. Theon bucked his hips to get away from the odd sensation, but there was nowhere to go. It was already inside of him, stretching him wider than ever. “Now get back out there and socialize, damn it. If anybody asks, I’ll tell them you begged me for a quickie in the bathroom.”

Theon’s eyes widened in horror. “No, you can’t—”

“Oh, am I not good enough to be one of your conquests?” Ramsay gave his ass a harsh slap that sent Theon recoiling head-first into the mirror. “Am I not worth bragging about to your precious Robb?”

“I don’t—”

“You don’t think Robb will have an angry wank imagining himself in my place as I pound your pretty ass tonight in the parking lot? Or does it only work if it’s a girl? Is Robb always the girl in your sick fantasies?” Ramsay’s hand slid around Theon’s hip to take hold of his prick, which was, much to Theon’s shame, already halfway to hard. The plug wasn’t even brushing his prostate. He had no excuse. “Can you imagine the look on his face if he walked in on us right now?”

Theon gave a strangled moan that he certainly hadn’t meant to.

Ramsay laughed. “They can probably all hear us out there. Well…you, at least. You’re the one moaning like a slut. I bet Catelyn Stark is so mortified that she forbids you from ever seeing her son again. I wouldn’t want the likes of you around, corrupting my pwecious wittle Wobb.”

He breathed this last part wetly into Theon’s ear, and Theon felt his knees buckle.

“Woah, woah.” Ramsay pulled his hand back. “Try to control yourself, would you? We’re in a public restroom, for Gods’ sakes, and I’m sure the Starks have put a lot of money into making sure this is a classy affair.” He side-stepped to the mirror over and began fixing loose strands of hair, straightening his own pink tie. “Get yourself cleaned up,” he sneered, adjusting his lapels. “You look like a mess.”

Then he turned and walked out, deliberately holding the door open so that Theon had to throw himself against the wall to make sure nobody outside saw him. When the door finally swung all the way closed, Theon bent—ugh, what a strange feeling with that _thing_ up his ass—and retrieved his pants. He redid the belt and zipped the fly, ignoring the hardness that tented the front of his pants. With enough concentration, it would go away on its own. What wouldn’t go away on its own was the extreme redness of his face and his disheveled hair.

He turned the faucet on and splashed water on his face. It dribbled down his chin, soaking his shirt collar, and the dog collar underneath. The tie he’d been so proud of became blotchy and wrinkled as it became soaked, and Theon felt tears well up in his eyes. He brushed them away with the back of his sleeve, choked it all down. There were several more hours to go; he couldn’t fall apart now.

He splashed more cold water on his face and into his open eyes. His blood vessel contracted with a stinging sensation, but that was good. It would get rid of the redness in his eyes. He turned off the faucet and looked up into the mirror. He looked like he’d been crying for hours. Robb would come over and ask what was wrong, and maybe even Jeyne would say something. Theon would have to come up with an excuse. That was fine. He was good at that.

He patted down his hair and stood up straight, shoulders back, head up. His tie was crooked; he fixed it. _Alright_ , he thought. _That’s as good as it’s going to get_. He left the mirror and walked stiffly to the door to rejoin the party.


	5. Guarded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A request for Ghost:
> 
> _I'd love a one-shot where Domeric comforts Reek after a really bad beating from Ramsay. It doesn't even have to be Domeric, I just want Reek to get some comfort tbh._
> 
> Probably not exactly what you were thinking (Theon isn't completely Reek at this point), but I hope it comes close.

The cell door opened, and Theon Greyjoy did not move when Domeric cast the light of his torch onto his prone form. For a moment, Domeric felt his throat seize up in panic. _Shit, shit, Ramsay killed our highborn hostage_! But as he knelt down, he could hear a ragged wheezing. He held the torch out to chase off the darker shadows, and Greyjoy flinched away from the light.

This was not the man Domeric had captured at Winterfell after his father had charged him with retaking the Starks’ ancestral home. This was not the man he’d order be given his own quarters and treated as a prisoner of war.

One large, frightened eye stared up at him—the other was swollen closed. Greyjoy’s face was a mask of matted blood, his nose broken, as well as a few teeth judging by the bits of white pebble scattered about on the floor. He jerked when Domeric reached out to wipe the blood from his mouth, movements unnatural. Dislocated shoulder, most likely. He turned his face away with a whimper. “Please, I’ve told all I know.”

With a sigh, Domeric stood and placed the torch into a sconce so that he had both hands free. Then he was kneeling down by Greyjoy’s side again. “I’m sorry Ramsay’s treated you—”

“I swear,” Greyjoy said, slowly trying to crawl away, “I didn’t know he was your brother when I—he was calling himself Reek. I didn’t know he was highborn, or I never would have—”

“He’s not highborn,” Domeric said. “He’s a bastard. _I’m_ acting lord of the Dreadfort while my father’s away. I didn’t give him permission to harm you.”

Greyjoy whimpered.

“This is not how we treat highborn prisoners in the North.” He reached out.

Greyjoy scooted back, dragging a useless arm on the floor. It looked like several—if not all—of his fingers had been broken as well. “I’m sorry I betrayed Robb. I’m sorry, I never should have done it, I know, I was wrong, please don’t take my head, I’ll—”

“King Robb hasn’t called for your head,” Domeric interrupted. He inched closer. Greyjoy was backed up against the wall now; there was nowhere else left to go. “I don’t know what’s to be done with you yet, but I know that Robb would not approve of this treatment. Here.” He tucked one hand on Greyjoy’s head, the other under his knees. “I’m going to take you to have your injuries seen to.”

Greyjoy hissed in pain and Domeric lifted him into his arms. Broken bones shifted under paper-thin skin. He was lighter than Domeric had expected, very thin and haggard under the tattered prisoner’s rags they’d given him. There was not a bit of him that wasn’t covered in filth of some kind or another. Ramsay had really outdone himself this time. He’d thought giving Ramsay a few weeks as lord of the Dreadfort while he saw to other matters would instill some sense of responsibility in his little brother. No such luck. Perhaps his father had been right. Perhaps Ramsay simply had bad blood and could not be expected to handle such things.

Greyjoy turned his head into Domeric’s shoulder, smearing blood everywhere. He moaned as Domeric climbed the stairs. Every little movement jostled his broken bones.

“I’ll call for the maester,” Domeric said, by way of filling the silence with something other than whimpering. “Tell me what hurts.”

“Everything,” Greyjoy murmured into the hollow of his throat. “P-please, make it stop hurting.”

“Shh.”

“My teeth. Please, can I have my teeth back? Without my teeth, I can’t…” He trailed off with a whine, and Domeric felt his heart go out to the pitiful bundle in his arms. Yes, his heart went out to a traitor and a child murderer. He admonished himself and said he was only doing this now because the other Houses needed to know that the Boltons treated their prisoners with respect. He didn’t owe anything to Theon Greyjoy.

He took him upstairs, as mindful as the jostling as he could be, and found an empty bedroom. The bed was not made up, but he wouldn’t have allowed the filth-encrusted body to touch fine sheets anyway. He called for a tub and hot water, and while he waited for both to be brought, he set Greyjoy gently on the floor and began wiping the blood from his face. That didn’t get him clean so much as reveal myriad cuts and bruises forming along his jawline, cheek, and forehead. When he brushed a bit of hair away, he felt rather than saw the egg-sized bump just under the hairline, and Greyjoy winced.

“Sorry,” Domeric said, pulling his hand away when he realized he was doing more harm than good.

“He…used his boot.”

Domeric nodded. “I guess he gave you a thorough beating.”

“Not just him.”

Ah, the miscreants Roose hired to trail Ramsay and make sure he wasn’t up to trouble. Though Domeric suspected they were just as eager to join Ramsay in his misdeeds than to talk him out of it. They were a vicious lot, uncouth at the best of times. They had no business being around important prisoners.

He was spared from further conversation by the arrival of the maids, one carrying the empty tub and two carrying buckets of steaming water. While they went to fetch more water, Domeric bid Greyjoy to undress. “You need to be clean for the maester.”

Greyjoy shrunk in on himself. “Your brother…he won’t be happy if I do.”

“He has no say in it. Do you need help undressing?”

Greyjoy shook his head, but quickly relented when it became clear he wouldn’t be able to lift his arm over his head to get the shirt off. Well, the rags were unsalvageable anyway. Domeric reached for the knife he kept in his boot. When Greyjoy saw it, he reeled backwards with a strangled cry.

“No, no, it’s fine, I’m not going to hurt you.” Domeric took hold of the loose fabric of the shirt and began cutting it. “I’m going to cut you out of those filthy rags, alright?”

Greyjoy didn’t relax as Domeric worked. Bit by bit, the dirty clothes were stripped away to reveal dirty flesh. It probably smelled foul, but Domeric had a strong stomach. Nothing he’d smelled yet could compare to the stench that had emanated off of him during the near-crippling bout of bowel sickness he’d experienced two years ago. It had smelled like death. He shouldn’t have survived. The maester told him he should be dead.

By the time he got Greyjoy completely bare, the maids had returned with water. They politely averted their eyes, dumped their buckets into the tub, and left without saying a word. Only then did Greyjoy relax and allow Domeric to help him to his feet. He stumbled unsteadily, and Domeric had to carry him most of the way.

The water melted away the top layers of dirt, but Domeric knew he’d need a good scrubbing to get to the skin underneath. As Greyjoy reclined against the side of the tub, Domeric rolled up his sleeves and took up the cloth one of the maids had so thoughtfully brought. “Tell me if it hurts,” he said and laid the cloth gently against Greyjoy’s back.

“Everything hurts,” he murmured in response.

Domeric began scrubbing with care, especially the shoulder. The more he worked, the more he saw that everything _did_ indeed hurt. Greyjoy’s body was a mass of varying shades of purple, green, and yellow, where it wasn’t pink from healing cuts and red from raw ones. Domeric sucked in a breath. There was too much damage here to have been sustained over a single beating.

There were also obvious signs of torture—not that a brutal beating couldn’t also be used as torture. Some of his finger- and toenails had been ripped out. A foot press had been used to crush the small bones in his toes, which would explain why he’d had trouble walking. A raw and shiny burn mark had been branded into the base of his spine, a crude X. That, irrationally, angered Domeric the most. How dare Ramsay, how _dare_ he use the Bolton sigil like that? It wasn’t his place.

Greyjoy was sobbing and Domeric realized he’d been scrubbing too hard. He dropped the cloth and took a step back to allow himself space to calm down.

“He shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have tortured you. He had no right.”

Greyjoy looked over his shoulder. “Did…Robb not order it that way?”

“Even if he had, I would have protested.”

Greyjoy turned back and stared deeply into the water, murky from all his filth. “Why?”

“Why?” Domeric repeated incredulously. “ _Why_ would I have protested?”

“I’m a turncloak. I deserve it.”

“I don’t believe that. And when Ned Stark was Warden of the North, he didn’t believe that either.” He inched closer but didn’t reach for the cloth again. “For hundreds of years, my family has excelled at torture. But that’s in the past. We gave that up when we bent the knee to the Starks. Torture has no place among civilized men.”

Greyjoy was silent for another moment. “You’re not at all what I expected from a Bolton.”

Domeric laughed. “I get that a lot, I think because people are so terrified of my father. For what it’s worth, you’re not what I expected from an Ironborn.”

Greyjoy put his good hand over his face and started sobbing softly.

“Woah, I…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like an insult. It’s a good thing, that you’re not like that. You’re refined and rational and—”

Greyjoy muttered something softly under his breath.

“What?” Domeric leaned in.

“I tried so hard.” He rocked back and forth slightly, causing the water to slosh in the tub. “First one way, then the other. Not a Stark, not a Greyjoy, not a Northerner, not Ironborn, not a man. Not, not, not, not, not.” He continued on with this mantra.

Domeric didn’t know what to say. He sat back on his heels and contemplated the cracks in the stone under his knees. He certainly wasn’t obligated to offer kindness and comfort to a man with such horrible crimes on his head. Roose was always admonishing him that he was weak for seeking out the good in people, especially when it came to Ramsay. But Ramsay was his brother. He couldn’t just give up on his brother.

Ramsay suffered from “not,” as well. Always defined by what he was _not_. Not a Bolton, not an heir, not wanted.

Slowly, Domeric reached out and placed a hand on Greyjoy’s shoulder, his good one. Just placed it there, nothing else. Greyjoy’s rocking stilled and he looked up. “It’s all right,” Domeric said. “ _I_ know who you are. _You_ know who you are. You’re Theon Greyjoy, and that’s all that matters right now.”

Theon stared at him with red-ringed eyes.

“And while King Robb’s orders still stand, you’re under my care. That means you’re my guest, and will be treated as one. Understand?”

Theon gave a timid nod, but he didn’t look like he understood at all.

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

“Until Robb calls for my head.”

Domeric nodded, because there wasn’t any sense in denying it. He would need to pay for his actions, but not like this. Not if Domeric had anything to say about it.

Theon stared back into the water. It was rapidly cooling and would need to be dumped soon. “Thank you,” he murmured in the tiniest voice possible.

“My Lord.”

Both Domeric and Theon looked up, startled to see Maester Tybald standing in the doorway. Perfect timing on the man’s part, but Domeric didn’t remember sending for him. Perhaps one of the maids had passed the word along?

“I cleaned him as best I could,” Domeric said, standing and wiping his wet hands on his breeches. “I hope you’ll be able to treat him properly, considering.”

Maester Tybald looked at Theon as if noticing him for the first time. He was a sharp man, and understanding crossed his face in an instance. “Ah, yes, I will treat Lord Greyjoy’s injuries in a moment. But I’m afraid that’s not why I’m here.” He pulled out a tiny slip of rolled-up paper. “Your father sent a raven.”

Domeric took the message uncertainly. Roose’s messages from the battle field had been showing greater and greater malcontent among the troops over the past few months.

“Help Theon out of the tub, would you?” he said as he moved to the hallway for proper privacy. “I’ll be with you shortly.”

He left to the sound of splashing water and heavy breathing as Theon gritted his teeth against the pain of being moved.

“Be careful with him,” Domeric called over his shoulder. “Robb Stark does not want him harmed until proper judgement can be passed.”

In the hallway, he unfurled the letter and read the simple note his father had written:

 _Robb Stark is dead_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to have the next one up by tomorrow, but if not, definitely Friday.


	6. Prepared

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank god for an anonymous option (you can't hide from the judgement of the Old Gods) said:
> 
> _I'd really, really love a oneshot modern AU where Ramsay has kidnapped Theon. He's been keeping him captive in his basement for three months, raping and starving and torturing him daily. He isn't allowed to wear clothes. Ramsay has been breaking his fingers one by one, and he tells Theon that if he can cook him the perfect dinner (with steak, or maybe a hard-to-prepare meal) in one hour, he'll release him. Ramsay invites the boys over and they all drink beer and watch Theon as he struggles to cook, and Theon is convinced that if he makes a meal that the bastard boys and Ramsay all love, they'll free him. Poor boy. Bonus if Ramsay molests or rapes or at the very least sexually harasses him while he's cooking, and everyone is mocking him. Extra bonus for them beating or hurting Theon as he's trying to cook and forcing him to refill their beers or do tasks that distract him from his work. Extra extra bonus for them mocking him for crying. You can decide the ending! Yupppp I'm a sick fuck._
> 
> I'll be your conductor on this train ride to special hell tonight. All aboard. >:)
> 
> Full disclosure: I’m not a cook. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are several petitions out there to recognize my cooking as a human rights violation.

Theon looked at all the food spread out on the counter and knew that, despite weeks without proper meals, none of it was meant for him. Ramsay had done an impeccable job of buying the ingredients he’d asked for, surprisingly so. When he’d come to Theon with this little “proposal,” Theon had thought it was a joke. Not a trick, a joke. But Ramsay had been dead serious.

He’d dragged Theon out into the open by the chain around his neck, sat him on his lap, and said, “So, I found your online dating profile, you little slut. You say you’re a master at giving head and an expert cook. And since you did turn out to be pretty good with your mouth like you said, I’m curious to see if you can back _this_ up as well. So, here’s what we’re going to do. If you can make me the best Gods-damned meal I’ve ever had in my life, I’ll let you go.”

A look of disbelief must have shown on Theon’s face.

“No, I’m serious. I’ll unchain, drive you back to where I picked you up along the highway, and let you go. But there are a few caveats. One, you don’t go to the police.”

“No, of course not,” Theon agreed. “I won’t tell _anyone_.”

“You’ll come up with a good excuse as to where you’ve been these last few months.”

“Of course.” Theon nodded so eagerly that the collar cut into his chin. “Probably nobody’s missed me at all.”

Ramsay smiled and ran a hand through Theon’s matted hair. “And as for the rules. One, you give me a list of ingredients and I’ll buy them. Two, you have to do it all from memory. No recipe, no guide for measurement. Three, it needs to be a three-course meal, enough to feed multiple people. I’ll be having friends over to help me judge. Four, you have one hour to do it.”

“One hour? But how—?”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way. After all, desperate men can pull off amazing feats, right?”

So, that was how Theon found himself here now, stomach growling and limbs shaking from hunger and yet unable to eat anything spread out before him. Out in the living room, Ramsay’s “friends” hooted and hollered at whatever game was on television. He had until the game ended to finish this meal; he had never prayed so hard for overtime in his life.

So, yeah. One hour to make a meal and earn his freedom. It sounded daunting on its own, and that wasn’t even taking into account the fact that three of his fingers were broken, he was having trouble standing upright because of malnourishment and missing toes, and he hadn’t been given any clothes, not even an apron. Theon gripped the counter, took a deep breath, and began.

_He’d taught himself to cook when he was young. His mother tried her best, but she wasn’t often capable of putting a meal together, and what she did make was more often than not barely edible. Neither his father nor his brothers were versed in anything beyond microwave dinners, which they often resorted to when his mother was too unwell to even get out of bed. Asha made token attempts, such as mac n’ cheese, but she had a life of her own and sometimes actively avoided coming home._

He began by taking the thick slabs of meat out of their packaging. Luckily, they had thawed in the car, so that was twenty minutes Theon could shave off in meal preparation. Ramsay had done a remarkable job of buying the right seasonings, and Theon began to coat the first steak in a layer of pepper, salt, paprika, garlic and onion powder, and red pepper flakes. The smell was heavenly, but the worst part was having no sleeves to wipe away the resulting saliva from his mouth and chin.

“You’re pretty good at handling meat.”

Theon jumped and looked up to see one of Ramsay’s “friends” at the door. He was a big guy with blond hair. Was his name Damon or something? Yeah, that seemed right.

He came over to stand behind Theon, and for a second, Theon thought he might just be genuinely interested in watching him cook. But then Damon grabbed his hips and bucked against Theon’s bare ass. “How would you like to handle _this_ meat?” No doubt referring to the hardness in his pants.

The steak slipped from Theon’s hands and nearly fell to the floor. Luck alone had it plopping on the counter, leaking juice everywhere. It was bad that Theon was more concerned about messing up the meal than the man grinding into him from behind. “Pl-please,” he said, “I have to finish. I—”

“You need to finish? Why didn’t you just say so?” Damon reached around and grabbed hold of Theon’s utterly flaccid dick. He gave a few pumps, but when that got no reaction—how could it, with the fear sizzling coldly in Theon’s veins—he gave a disgusted grunt and backed off. “Fine,” he muttered, opening the fridge and retrieving a beer for himself. Then he left without another word.

Trembling, Theon picked up the next steak and continued with his work.

_One day, when he was about twelve years old, his brothers had gotten too rough with their “roughhousing” and Theon had ended up with a broken leg. He’d spent the next few weeks virtually bedridden, and to alleviate the boredom, Asha had brought the television into his room. While flipping through channels, Theon had found a program on the cooking channel,_ Daily Dornish Cooking _, hosted by an especially attractive woman. At first he’d been mesmerized by her face, then by her hands, but not in the usual prurient twelve-year-old way. She handled the food with such precision and care, soon he found himself caring more about what the finished dish would look like than if she would bend over to show more cleavage. Trapped in bed, unable to hardly get up to go to the bathroom on his own, Theon had watched and watched that show, eventually branching out to other programs as well, as the chef hosts explained the finer art of cooking._

Five…six…seven steaks—Theon hadn’t bothered to make one for himself—all seasoned and set on a baking sheet. He popped them into the oven, set the timer, and went about preparing the salad. Lots of people underestimated what a nice salad could do to bring a meal together.

A roasted rhubarb salad with goat cheese would do. This was a recipe he’d learned on _Daily Dornish Cooking_ , with the hostess guaranteeing it would bring a bit of crunch and class to any dinner. He pulled out the cutting board and laid it down on the mess he’d made of the counter. If he weren’t under a deadline, he would have used safer food preparation techniques, but given the limitations…

He paused. Maybe he could give Ramsay salmonella poisoning, or worse? Ramsay didn’t seem to be paying particular attention. But, no, it would be too slow-acting.

“Hey, check this out!” someone called from the living room.

That didn’t seem to be directed at Theon, so he ignored it until something hard crashed against the back of his head. He staggered, and the men sitting out on the couch laughed.

“Here, let me try.”

Theon turned in time to dodge the next incoming projectile—a beer bottle. It shattered against the cupboard drawers and left bits of shattered glass all over the floor. Then another, and another, as Ramsay’s friends one-by-one joined in tossing their bottles at him. Some hit, some broke to create even more glass shards. It felt like it would never end, but it did. There were only so many beer bottles seven men could have among them.

A silence fell as the last bouts of laughter faded away.

“Hey!” someone’s voice called, and this time it _was_ directed at him. “The least you could do is bring us refills.”

_No, I have work to do._

“Do it.” Ramsay’s voice cut through everything else. “Or else I’ll cut your cooking time in half.”

Theon hurried to comply. He went to the fridge, wincing as he walked. The larger bits of glass were easy to walk around; it was the small ones that lodged in the soles of his feet and between his toes—or where some of his toes had been. He fetched a six-pack of bottled beer—the weight of it was unbearable on his broken fingers, so he ended up carrying it tucked against his chest—and hurried out to serve the men, who laughed and jeered at him as he scuttled in awkwardly.

Ramsay took his new beer and held it out. “Open this,” he ordered.

Theon looked around for the bottle opener.

“With your teeth, moron.”

He was probably expecting Theon to chip a tooth, but Theon used to open bottles with his teeth all the time at parties—it was a great trick for impressing chicks. He expertly opened the bottle, spat out the cap, and handed it back to Ramsay, who glowered but couldn’t seem to find any fault to punish him for.

“Get back to work,” he muttered as the commercials cut out and the game came back on.

Theon was all too happy to oblige.

_The first meal he ever made had gotten him the nicest compliment he’d ever received from his father: “It’s not bad. Where’d you learn to make it?” He’d gotten plenty of much nicer compliments over the years from friends, coworkers, and people he’d dated, but that first positive response had always fueled his passion going forwards._

The preparation for the salad went smoothly. Ramsay had also done a competent job buying the produce. The rhubarb was thin and tender, the arugula was fresh and crispy, and the goat cheese was a fairly nice brand. Overall, he could definitely make this work. He started cutting the leaves off the rhubarb and mixing them in with the arugula. Ramsay had given him a little paring knife for the task. It was nice and sharp, but…

Theon glanced over his shoulder, but they were all still engaged in their game. No, it would never work. Even if he managed to cut Ramsay enough to kill or even injure him enough, he wouldn’t be able to do the same to the others. He finished cutting the rhubarb stalks into little bits and set the knife aside.

The timer on the stovetop beeped, which meant it was time to take the steaks out and put the rhubarb in. He turned the oven up as he pulled out the baking sheet with the steak slabs, glad that Ramsay had allowed him to use oven mitts for the task. It was the only bit of clothing he’d been allowed since he got here—if you didn’t count a collar, of course.

The rhubarb went in to roast and the steaks came out for searing. The oil and garlic had been warming on the stovetop and now was hot enough to sizzle when Theon dropped the first steak in. He had always found the sound of sizzling immensely satisfying, but now, for some reason it sounded like the pained cry of a dying animal. He shook that thought off and reached for the tongs.

That’s when he felt the presence behind him. He started as a large hand reached over him and grabbed the tongs out of his grasp. “Looking for this?” Ramsay’s voice said.

Theon’s throat hitched.

Ramsay leaned in over him, pressing Theon’s hips against the lip of the stovetop, dangerously close to the red-hot coil of the burner where the steak continued to sear. “Mmm,” he murmured into Theon’s ear, “smells good in here.”

Theon didn’t know where to put his hands, so he kept them by his side to keep from burning them. He went completely rigid as Ramsay reached over him again and stuck his fingers into the butter Theon had set aside for the searing process. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all.

His suspicions were proven correct when Ramsay’s fingers found their way to the crease of his ass. The butter burned the myriad cuts and tears from previous abuse as the fingers went in, and Theon closed his eyes. “No, please,” he said, unsure if he had even spoken out loud until Ramsay gave a mirthful chuckle. Tears sprang to his eyes, but he fought them back. Not very well, but he tried. “I have to flip the steak in three minutes.”

“Then I guess I have three minutes,” Ramsay smirked.

 

***

 

Ramsay sat back with a satisfied sigh. “Well, boys,” he said, “what did you think?”

Theon looked up from collecting the empty plates. The fact that they’d eaten pretty much everything had to be a good sign.

“Pretty good,” the one called Damon said, “but my steak was a little too tough.”

“Mine was burned on one side,” one of the other men offered.

Theon limped back into the kitchen and set the plates in the sink. He’d used the time they were eating to dig the larger pieces of glass out of his foot, but he couldn’t really do anything about the burning in his ass. Ramsay had been pretty upset when the tongs wouldn’t go as easily into his body as he’d hoped, and since they were too dirty to use on the steaks afterwards, Theon had had to use his fingers to turn the steaks over.

“We’ve come to an agreement,” Ramsay said as Theon came back for the rest of the dishes. “We’ve agreed that your meal was not bad, but we don’t think it’s really freedom-worthy.”

Theon’s heart sank, but he’d been expecting as much. He’d hoped against hope that Ramsay might actually keep his word, but now he saw how foolish he’d been.

“But I admire the effort,” Ramsay continued, standing. “Perhaps we’ll try again in another three months.”

Theon nodded numbly.

“Oh Gods, it looks like he’s going to _cry_ ,” one of the men crowed.

Ramsay came around the table and put a meaty hand on Theon’s shoulder. “Don’t look so stricken, friend. My buddies were all looking forward to a little after-dinner entertainment.”

Theon’s head snapped up at that.

“I was thinking—”

“Rams, I don’t feel so well.”

Ramsay turned around and leered at the man who’d spoken, a skeletally thin creature. He had his hands on his stomach.

“You ate too fast,” Damon laughed at him.

“No, I don’t feel so well either,” another man said. “I feel kinda…” He lurched out of his chair, took a few steps, and vomited all over the carpet.

Ramsay turned to Theon with a horrid look on his face, which was quickly becoming green. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

Ramsay wrapped his hands around Theon’s throat. “What did you put in the food?”

“Nothing you didn’t buy for me, I swear,” Theon protested. It was easy enough to pull out of Ramsay’s grasp, though, because his hands were shaking. He fell to his knees, clutching his stomach. Then he doubled over and threw up as well.

Theon took his chance. He ran from the room. Chairs scraped along the floor as the other men stood to give chase, but they would probably be feeling the effects soon as well, especially since Theon had encouraged them to eat the salad first—“It helps with digestion,” as they said in Dorne.

He ran for the front door, fumbled with the five locks, and threw the door open, all with time to spare. Fresh air hit his bare skin. It was dark, and Ramsay’s house was in the middle of the woods, but there was a dirt road that would probably take him back to the highway. He slammed the door on the sounds of men groaning and vomiting behind him.

In truth, he didn’t know if he’d used enough to kill them or simply debilitate them for a while, but the latter was all he needed. He ran, ignoring the pain in his feet, in his ass, in every cell of his body. The effects would last for several days, if he was lucky. He promised himself that one day, when he was safe and Ramsay was either dead or behind bars, he would send a letter to _Daily Dornish Cooking_ and thank the hostess for saving his life. _Dear Tyene Sand, you were absolutely right about rhubarb leaves. They’re poisonous._


	7. Reunited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lisa asked: 
> 
> _How about a fic that's set after ADWD, where Theon is captured from Stannis by the Bastard's Boys and delivered back to Ramsay, who is just on top of the world to finally have his pet back?_
> 
> Sorry this one's on the shorter side, more like a double-drabble. Hopefully it has all the Thramsay goodness of a full-length fic, though.

They dragged him through the snow to a fallen log, where Damon used a heavy rock to shatter his shins. Theon screamed and writhed and laughed. They didn’t need to break his legs. They didn’t _need_ to do that. He already knew escaping was futile. He wouldn’t run.

“I think he’s broken,” Damon said as he slung Theon over his shoulder. “His mind’s completely gone.”

The other Boys murmured in agreement.

“Do you think Ramsay will be angry with us?” Skinner asked. “We let his wife slip away.”

“Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with explain,” Theon added helpfully.

“Naw,” Sour Alyn said. “I think he’ll be happy as long as he gets his pet back.”

“Reek, Reek, it rhymes with unique,” Theon concurred. He’d known Ramsay would come for him. He’d known and dreaded. And now that it happened, it was almost a relief. That was why he was laughing. He was _relieved_.

They trudged back to Winterfell. Theon didn’t struggle. He _didn’t_. He was well-behaved. They really didn’t have to break his legs. He knew he was going back, back to the Bastard. Oh, right, he wasn’t supposed to say that. Lord Ramsay Bolton, but never Snow. Not Lord Snow, though that seemed to be all he ruled over these days. Snow, snow, more snow. It piled up over the battlements. It had allowed him and Jeyne to jump. To fly.

They didn’t have Jeyne. She had escaped. He was supposed to call her Arya Bolton, because Lord Ramsay liked changing people’s names around. _Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with pain_. Just like he wasn’t supposed to be Theon. _Reek, Reek, it rhymes with shriek_.

Ramsay greeted them to moment they came through the gate, wind whipping his hair in every direction. His face was grim but lit up when Damon unslung Theon— _no, you’re Reek, remember, it rhymes with freak_ —and dropped him on the ground at Ramsay’s feet. Ramsay knelt down and ran a hand through Reek’s hair, cupped his chin, pulled his face up so that they were eye to eye.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Reek didn’t know what to do, so he laughed. Ramsay pulled him close and hugged him tight, while he laughed and laughed until tears came to his eyes and froze on his cheeks.

“Sorry,” Alyn spoke up. “We weren’t able to get the girl.”

Ramsay looked up, startled, as if he’d forgotten the Boys were there. “Let the whore go then,” he muttered in disgust.

“Jeyne, Jeyne, rhymes with won’t see her again.”

“We broke his legs for you,” Damon said. He always did have a habit of pointing out the obvious.

“We’ll cut them off later.” Ramsay scooped Reek up into his arms. “You won’t be running away again.”

Reek giggled and gnawed nervously on his fingers. What fingers he had left. With what teeth he had left.

Skinner shook his head. “Whatever Stannis did to him, it really messed him up.”

“He’s not messed up.” Ramsay buried his nose in the crook of Reek’s neck and breathed deeply. “He’s perfect. Aren’t you, my Reek?”

Reek clutched Ramsay’s shoulder and laughed and laughed and sobbed.


	8. Engaged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adeline asked: 
> 
> _How about a story where Ramsay sees Theon in a bar celebrating his engagement to Robb with some friends, but Ramsay just has to have him so he roofies, kidnaps, and rapes him? And of course he steals his engagement ring as a souvenir :)_

Ramsay was enjoying a cigarette in the motel parking lot when he heard a door open, followed by the hurried patter of feet on the landing above. Ah, he was awake, then. Ramsay hid in the shadows under the steps and watched as the skinny guy hurried down the stairs and into the registration office. The door closed with a slam, and Ramsay could no longer hear but could still see heated words exchanged between the guy and the sweaty-looking clerk manning the front desk. A moment later, the door opened and the skinny guy came out, fumbling with his phone.

He’d been so well-dressed last night, so put-together as he stood up on the bar and flashed his wad of cash around. “Next round’s on me!” he announced. “I’m getting married!” Everyone lifted their drinks and cheered, though probably more from the prospect of free beer than enthusiasm at some asshole’s wedding announcement.

Ramsay had watched from the booth in the far corner. There was something about that pretty little twink, something about his cocky grin that just begged to be wiped off his face.

“Strip bar next?” one of the guy’s friends had said, to even more cheers. “We’ll make it a proper bachelor’s party.”

The skinny guy shook his head and hopped down from the countertop. “Naw, that’s not really my thing…anymore,” he added with a mischievous grin, to more hooting and hollering. “Anyway, I _just_ found out I’m getting married to the man of my dreams. The last thing on my mind is looking for a replacement, y’know? Because no such person exists.”

The women gathered at the bar sighed.

“You _better_ not go back to your old ways, Theon Greyjoy,” the girl with bright red hair said. She looked like your typical rich bitch, probably a fag hag if she was hanging out with this guy. “If you hurt my brother…”

“I know, I know.” The guy—Theon—held up his hands in surrender. “Trust me, Sansa, I know Robb’s far better than I deserve.”

The redhead sat back with a suspicious look on her face, and Ramsay knew this Theon was a guy with a reputation. Obviously, you could tell just from looking at him. Dark, handsome, rich—probably Daddy’s money, but still. He was a heartbreaker, for sure, one who enjoyed both pursuing and being pursued. He loved cock, couldn’t get enough of it, in his mouth, in his ass. Picturing him like that, filled from both ends and yet yearning for still more, made Ramsay hard just thinking about it. Shame about the marriage thing. One less slut running around.

Ramsay contemplated his drink. _Yes, shame, that_. Someone really ought to give him one last good, hard fucking. For the road, as it were.

“Can I see the ring?” a brown-haired girl asked, leaning in.

Theon set his beer down and thrust his hand out for her to see. The women, and even a few of the men, gathered around to admire the golden band on his womanish fingers. “Eighteen-karat Lannister gold,” he preened under their attention. A chorus of ooh’s, ahh’s, and aww’s.

It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. His back had been turned on his drink. Ramsay had gotten up from his booth and walked over to the bar to give the guy a congratulatory pat on the back, his other hand slipping two pills into the unwatched drink.

Now, in the motel parking lot, Theon was pacing back and forth as he waited for his call to go through. Ramsay stayed pressed against the wall, watching through the slats of the stairs. The skinny guy looked much better the way he was now, hair a mess, clothes in a disarray, on the brink of tears.

Someone picked up on the other side of the phone, but Ramsay couldn’t hear who. Theon took a sobbing breath and said, “Robb, I need you to come pick me up. I can’t…I don’t know what happened last night, but I can’t find my car keys.”

He waited for this Robb fucker to respond.

“I…I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I went out to celebrate our engagement, and I guess I had too much to drink. I—”

From the way he winced, apparently Robb was bawling him out. He placed a hand over his face and looked like he was going to fall apart at any moment.

“Robb, someone stole my wallet and…” A hiccup. “And the ring.”

Another pause as he waited for Robb to take that in.

“I don’t know. I woke up and it wasn’t on my finger. I looked _everywhere_.”

Ramsay smirked and fingered the ring in his pocket. It was too small for his fingers, but he’d have no trouble finding some to hock it off to.

Theon’s face contorted as the conversation continued on Robb’s end.

“In a hotel room,” he mumbled. “I was…um…” He looked around. The parking lot was empty, and apparently he couldn’t see Ramsay hiding behind the stairs because he continued, “I might need to get…tested.”

The resounding “What?” was so loud that even Ramsay could hear it.

“I don’t know. I woke up and…I don’t remember, but…it was a guy. I don’t know if we used a condom or not. He wasn’t there when I woke up. The guy at the desk said he paid for the room with cash. No name, no ID. I…” His voice hitched and he stumbled against the wall. “I’m sorry, Robb. I’m _so_ sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t think I’d drunk so much…”

He began crying then. Fat tears rolled down his cheek as he sobbed and sobbed. Ramsay felt himself getting hard again. Maybe, after Robb dumped his ass for being a cheating asshole, Ramsay could swoop back in and offer to fuck the pain away. It might be fun to have him moaning and writhing, rather than lying there like a dead weight as Ramsay fucked into him from behind.

Theon sniffled and wiped his eyes with the back of his free hand. “You don’t know that, Robb.”

Ramsay frowned.

“I mean…what if I was so drunk that I fell back into my old ways?”

Ramsay didn’t like where this was going. He desperately wanted to know what Robb was saying that was making Theon so desperate to take as much blame as he possibly could.

“Yeah, I…mm-hmm. The last thing I remember, I was showing Jeyne my ring and then…nothing.”

More silence.

“Yeah, I’m at the Economy Inn off the highway. I don’t see my car in the parking lot at all.”

More silence, and Theon pushed off from the wall.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be waiting by the bus stop.”

More silence.

“I love you too.”

He pocketed his phone and began across the parking lot, limping slightly as he went. Ramsay had not been gentle with him. He could even see the bruises forming on his upper arms. Suddenly, Ramsay felt the need to leave more permanent marks, cut and tear and leave scars that would never, ever heal so that this skinny little faggot would never, ever forget him. As it was, he didn’t even remember their encounter, his bruises would heal, and this Robb fucker had forgiven him for cheating. What the fuck?

The urge was so strong that he started to walk out from the shadows of the stairs before he stopped himself. Theon was already crossing the street, and there were plenty of people who would notice if he grabbed him and forced him into the trunk of his car. He cursed and instead stormed to his own car, which he’d left strategically parked on the other side of the motel.

He sat in the driver’s seat for several seconds, gritting his teeth angrily. He reached into his pocket for his keys. His fingers brushed against the ring he’d pried off Theon’s finger sometime after their first round of fucking. He pulled it out now and examined it. Just a simple band, but definitely worth some money. Genuine Lannister gold, he’d said?

Ramsay closed his fist around it. He’d been planning on selling it, but now he reconsidered. It would make a nice little memento to add to his collection at home. Theon might not remember their night together, but Ramsay wouldn’t forget. Maybe he’d even be able to remind Theon on of these days.

He put the car into drive and tore away from the curb.


	9. Imparted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isabel said: 
> 
> _My request is simple but I know you'll work your magic on it - I'd love a one-shot where Roose uses Theon to make Ramsay jealous. ;)_
> 
> But no pressure, right? JK, I hope I didn't disappoint.

Ramsay didn’t like this. He was used to scoldings from his father, but…but why was _Reek_ here? Standing next to Roose’s chair, chin lowered, eyes averted. He looked like he’d rather be back in the dungeons. _Ramsay_ would rather he be back in the dungeons.

“You wanted to speak with me, Father?”

Roose had his hands folded in his lap, but he gestured Ramsay to come in with a nod. “Close the door behind you.”

Ramsay did.

“Have a seat.” Roose nodded to the chair across from him.

Ramsay shuffled over to it and sat. And waited.

The fireplace had been lit recently, judging from the lack of ash. It cast flickering shadows across the floor—Roose, Ramsay, Reek. It did nothing to stave off the chill of winter’s approach.

Ramsay looked to Reek. His father had cleaned and bathed him, given him fine clothes. It was like dressing up a scarecrow.

Roose sighed and crossed one leg over the other, ankle to knee. He steepled his fingers. The shadows cast on his face by the fireplace made him look cadaverous. He was waiting for Ramsay to say something.

“What did you want to discuss?”

“You’re to be married soon.”

Ramsay shifted in his chair uncomfortably. “Yes, I met her.” The brown-haired girl his father was trying to pass off as Arya Stark. “What of it?”

Roose stared at him, unflinching. “The entire North will be watching your marriage.”

“I know.”

“It is the key to holding our power.”

“I _know_ ,” Ramsay repeated.

“I do not want a repeat of Lady Hornwood.”

“She was old,” he shot back in defense. “She was frail. She never stood a hope of matching me. I need someone I can _play_ with.” He grinned in satisfaction as his eyes roved to Reek again. He certainly didn’t look it, but he was sturdy. He’d lasted this long through all of Ramsay’s games. It made him perversely proud.

“You will not _play_ with Arya,” Roose said sharply, so sharply that Ramsay sat up straight in his chair. “You are not to harm her. Not in a way that anyone can notice.”

“So? I’m sure you can get her to keep her mouth shut in front of our bannermen.”

“And what if she has bruises all over her body? A broken arm? What if they see that she is _missing fingers_?” He reached out and grabbed Reek’s thin wrist. Reek gasped and jerked on instinct, but Roose pulled him in close. “You’re lucky your latest pet has no sympathies in the North, but you wife is the daughter of Ned Stark, a man who was widely respected, even in death. I will not let your inability to _control_ yourself ruin our alliances.”

Silence, with only the crackling of the fire and Reek’s terrified breathing.

At last, Ramsay sat back in his chair and spread his arms wide. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to control your urges. When you bed your new wife, the only evidence you may leave on her is your seed growing in her belly. No bruises, no biting, no broken limbs. Nothing that cannot be concealed under clothing, and even then, I would prefer you not to. I would not have the chambermaids spreading news of your inclinations.”

Ramsay bristled at that. “You really think I’m some dumb beast?”

“Dumb beasts at least have a sense of self-preservation,” Roose sniffed. With a sharp tug, he pulled Reek into his lap. Reek yelped, and Ramsay’s temper flared. “I understand that perhaps I should have had this conversation with you much sooner. A boy without proper guidance from his father, after all, will only learn from whatever sources are on hand. So I’m going to teach you, right now, how to take pleasure from a woman without leaving a mark.”

He began undoing the buttons of Reek’s fancy new doublet. Reek turned his head away from his master’s gaze.

Ramsay was on his feet in an instant. “You’re not to touch him like that. He’s mine!”

“And what’s yours is also mine. We discussed this.” He slid the doublet down Reek’s thin shoulders.

“Wait!” Ramsay didn’t know whether to take a step forward or not. “Reek…Reek’s not a woman.”

“He doesn’t have a cock.” Roose began unlacing Reek’s breeches. Reek moaned and squirmed in discomfort. Of course. He hated having his master’s father’s hands on him, but he didn’t dare fight back. He was just that obedient. “If I can enter a man without leaving bruises, I expect you can enter a woman. After all, a cunt is much easier.”

It always unnerved Ramsay whenever his father used filthy language, precisely because Roose didn’t make it sound filthy at all. It was just another word, like “head” or “neck,” no particular emphasis placed on it. It was all the same to him. Not for the first time, Ramsay wondered if his father was human at all. And people said the Bastard of Bolton was a monster. At least he had human emotions!

Roose slipped his hand down the front of Reek’s unlaced pants.

Ramsay gritted his teeth. “If you’re going to teach me a lesson on women, might you at least do it on your cow of a wife?” Much as it roiled his stomach to think of his father fucking that fat bitch, he’d take it over the...the emotion he couldn’t pinpoint as Roose continue to fondle Reek.

“And have her tell the Freys that I took her while my son watched? You don’t seem to understand the importance of treating your assets well. It seems this was a lesson a long time in coming.” Ramsay couldn’t see what he was doing with his hand, but whatever it was, Reek clenched his eyes closed and let out a soft mewling sound.

“Then get a whore. Or some chambermaid.”

Roose’s hand stilled his movement. “I think you’re missing the point of this lesson, boy.”

Reek turned his eyes to Ramsay, his breathing hard, his face flushed. He was hardly recognizable with his nice clothes and his clean skin. Something else his father could take away on a whim. Something else that wouldn’t truly belong to him until the old man was dead.

He saw now, saw what his father was trying to do, and hated himself for jumping so quickly into it.

Roose saw that he understood and stood abruptly, pushing Reek from his lap. Reek fell to his hands and knees on the floor and didn’t try to get up.

“Remember,” Roose said, straightening out his collar and then smoothing down his hair, “that there is nothing you own which was not given to you by me. No matter how much you wish to believe the contrary. This creature of yours…”

Reek flinched.

“Do with him as you will, but if Lady Arya is seen with so much as a scratch on her…”

Ramsay held back the urge to swallow the lump forming in his throat.

“…I will reclaim what is mine, rightfully.”

Ramsay stood stock still.

“Do you understand me, boy?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good, because we will not be having this discussion again.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Now…get out.” He said it low and dangerous, like the hissing of a snake. Ramsay would have gutted any other man who dared speak to him like that.

Instead, he nodded and bent to reach for Reek.

“Leave him.”

Ramsay stopped, mid-kneel.

“He’s to be kept presentable until the wedding.”

“I promise, I won’t—”

“Leave him.”

Everything in Ramsay told him to go over and snap the man’s neck. It would make the most satisfying sound. He would fuck Reek on top of his corpse and relish in the crying, the muttered apologies of, “Sorry, Master, he made me do it, Master.” But instead, Ramsay stood up and took several steps backwards. Why did he allow his father to cow him like this? In front of Reek, no less?

“You won’t…touch him, will you?”

Roose… _smiled_. It was not the smile a normal man would give, or even the smile of a psychotic killer. It was the faintest, barely visible uptick of his lip, so tiny that it didn’t move his face at all. “Unlike you, _I_ know how to administer a lesson without a leaving a mark.”


	10. Forgiven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lan made this request:
> 
> _(Book-verse) During one of the first few nights of his captivity, before he's been tortured anything beyond just beaten and whipped by the Bastard’s Boys, Ramsay releases him and tells him that there's been a mistake, that Theon will be treated as their guest, not their prisoner, and brings him up to his chambers. Theon has been starved and exhausted, and Ramsay gives him a bath and eats with him and gives him some really sweet h/c to the point where Theon starts doubting the Reek betrayal from back in Winterfell. And when they’re lying on his bed and Theon is telling Ramsay his life story, Ramsay starts laughing hysterically at him. Theon is confused and hurt and doesn’t know what to do—and then Ramsay violently rapes him._
> 
> Long-con Ramsay for the win!

“I wanted to apologize again. This never should have happened, and I take full responsibility.” Ramsay placed the sincerest of hands over his heart. “I should have informed my men of your position. It was entirely my fault.”

“Yes, well…” Theon paused to finish his wine. He still wasn’t sure what this was, but he was going to play his hand for all it was worth. He’d been held in a dungeon for days, beaten and tortured and starved, and if Ramsay—formerly Reek—thought this apology was going to make up for that, he had a lot more thinking to do. “Your remorse has been noted.”

“More wine?” Without waiting for a response, Ramsay reached for the pitcher and refilled Theon’s cup. “More food? Just say the word and I’ll have whatever you want brought up from the kitchens.”

Theon waved him off. He was full. Stuffed. Overcompensating for days without any food at all, and it was catching up with him. He was glad for the wine, though. He took another long sip from his cup.

“I was hoping you might put in a good word with your father.” Ramsay set the pitcher back down. “Tell him I had nothing to do with your abominable treatment.” Ah, so that was his plan. Theon had pegged him as a coward from the day he’d let him out of the Winterfell dungeons.

“I thought you were taking _full_ responsibility.”

Ramsay smiled demurely. It wasn’t a good look on him. “I was hoping you might in any case, as a show of forgiveness.”

“I’ll think about it.” Theon finished the rest of the wine in one long gulp then stood, gathering the thick blanket about him. While his clothes were being properly cleaned, Ramsay had given him a woolen nightshirt to stave off the cold of the Dreadfort. Even Winterfell at its coldest had not been this cold, and Theon’s knees knocked together as he made his way to the bed. “I’ll sleep on it.”

Ramsay nodded. “Is there anything else I can do for you, my Lord?”

“No,” Theon hissed. “Leave me. I want to sleep.”

He flopped onto the bed, sighing into the soft, down-stuffed pillows. After days of being left tied to a rack, this was so comfortable it was actually painful. His muscles didn’t want to relax, as if they weren’t quite convinced he was out of danger. He lay there for a long moment, until he felt the other side of the bed dip. He jolted up when he saw Ramsay sitting there, looking at him with those cold, unreadable eyes.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I really cannot express how sorry I am that this happened. I want you to know that.”

“What I _know_ ,” Theon said, “is that you’d do anything to save your worthless bastard hide.”

Ramsay’s thick lips twitched. _I’ve upset him_ , Theon thought with satisfaction. _I’ve hit a nerve_. That probably wasn’t the smartest thing he could have done, but over the last few days, he’d been tied to a saltire for hours without end, beaten by a gang of unwashed ruffians, and been given no food or water. And Ramsay wanted him to know he was _sorry_?

“You’re right,” Ramsay finally said with a sigh. “I _am_ worthless. I’m a shame to my father and his House. If I were in your position, held captive in a faraway place, I doubt he would lift a finger to help me.” He snorted mirthlessly. “In fact, I know he wouldn’t. He often tells me how much of an embarrassment I am, how he would be glad to be rid of me.”

Theon sat up and looked at him.

Ramsay wiped at his cheek, even though Theon couldn’t see any tears. “I’m sorry. I mean…for everything, obviously, but also… It’s not my place to try to comfort you. You demonstrated it enough at Winterfell. A highborn lord like yourself has precious little in common with me.” He started to stand.

“Wait…I…”

Ramsay paused.

Theon wasn’t sure what he was doing. He was tired. He was sore and so, so _tired_. It was making him emotional, making it harder to keep his anger and indignation against the bastard going. And…and he was—he’d just realized it, just this moment—he was _lonely_. He hadn’t had anyone to confide in since the debacle at Winterfell, since he’d first set foot on Pyke, since he’d left Robb.

Ramsay turned to look at him expectantly.

“Has…any word arrived from my father?” Theon asked.

Ramsay hesitated. “Not yet, my Lord.”

Some emotion must have shown on Theon’s face—he hated to think _what_ emotion—because Ramsay sat back down.

“I hope I’m not speaking above my station, my Lord, but it seems to me that your father’s a bit of a cunt.”

Theon’s first instinct was to say, “Yes, you _are_ speaking above your station,” but it was quickly replaced by what he actually said. “He hates me.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t _hate_ you.” Ramsay slid all the way onto the bed and sidled up next to him. “He simply doesn’t _appreciate_ you.”

“How do I make him appreciate me?” Theon muttered. “How could I _possibly_ , after…?” It was a rhetorical question, of course.

“That’s the problem with fathers,” Ramsay answered anyway, with a shake of his head. “If a highborn lord such as yourself, one who captured and held Winterfell with only a handful of men, can’t hope to win his father’s approval, what hope does a poor bastard like me stand?”

Theon turned over and pulled the blanket tight about him. “He wanted me to go raiding along the coast. Gave me the most menial task he could think of, and even then, he probably didn’t even expect me to do that right. I took Winterfell to impress him.” He wrinkled his nose against angry tears forming in his eyes. “The only decision I’ve been allowed to make for myself, and I fucked it up.”

He felt a hand on his shoulder, gentle and comforting. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, but he didn’t tell Ramsay to keep his hands to himself.

“I see now that there was no way I could have won,” he continued, allowing his bitterness to seep out. “Everyone had written me off before I even joined the game.”

“If it helps, _I_ did not write you off,” Ramsay said.

“No, you betrayed me the first moment you could.”

“Not the first moment, no. There were plenty of chances before.”

Theon didn’t want to think about that, about how easily he’d trusted this man. There was an obvious question— _Why_?—but he didn’t want to ask it. He didn’t want to know, and he didn’t care. He didn’t care when or why or how Ramsay had turned on him, only that it was done and Winterfell was in ashes because of it.

Ramsay answered anyway. Again. “I suppose I stayed on so long because I was hoping you would prevail.”

Theon lifted his head at that.

A hand brushed through his hair, still slightly damp from the earlier bath. “You remind me of myself a great deal, my Lord.”

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

“Perhaps not.”

The hand smoothed down his hair and rubbed at the base of his neck. Theon moaned. His shoulders were unbearably tense from being forced to hold the same position for hours and hours. Ramsay’s hands were warm as they pulled away the blanket, slid down his nightshirt, and began massaging the space between his shoulder blades.

“Does that feel good, my Lord?”

“Mm,” Theon agreed. Who knew Ramsay, with his big, meaty hands, could also be so delicate and gentle with his fingers? They worked wide, soothing circles, bunching up his muscles and then releasing them. He could hear the popping and groaning of his own bones under Ramsay’s ministrations, but it felt so…wonderful.

“My mother used to do this for me when I was upset. I took great comfort in it.”

Theon buried his face in the pillow. “My mother used to sing to me. She’s one of the only soft things I remember about the Islands.”

“Soft, my Lord?”

“The Iron Islands are hard lands, and they breed hard men. Hardly anything grows there. No trees. You would call them barren and lifeless. I remember being intimidated by just how _green_ everything was on the mainland. And mind, it was _winter_ when I was taken. Snow covered everything, and it was still greener than anything I’d ever seen before.”

“I can’t imagine such a place.” Ramsay dug deep into a particular knot. Theon moaned out loud, the sort of pain that left a glowing warmth in its wake.

“And yet, despite that,” Theon continued, because for some reason he didn’t want Ramsay to get the wrong impression of his homeland, “there is more life in the sea than anything the greenland has to offer. The Ironborn of old knew that. We’re known for our raiding, and mostly for our ability to destroy, but the Ironborn also know there is a beauty and satisfaction in carving your own place in an inhospitable land. Nothing we have was _given_ to us. We _took_ it.”

They were both silent for a while, and Theon worried that he’d perhaps waxed too poetic for a simple bastard to understand.

At last, Ramsay made a sound of understanding. “You know, my Lord, despite all of this…nastiness…” he said, pausing to press deeply into the junction of shoulder blade and shoulder, “I am glad we met. I think our meeting was…prearranged.”

Theon didn’t even care what nonsense he was talking about. As long as he kept delivering _that_ pain, the kind he could stand, the kind he knew would end, he could lie here forever. It was more like pressure being ebbed away rather than the plucking of a tight string, slow and gentle and exactly what he needed. Resistance seeped from his body in waves, with the in-and-out motion of Ramsay’s fingers.

“Do you believe in fate, Lord Greyjoy?”

“Fuck fate,” he mumbled sleepily. He’d spent so much of his life thinking _if only this_ or _if only that_. It never came down to him, though. He’d always been in someone else’s hands. “If fate is real, it only exists to fuck me over.”

Ramsay chuckled, which bothered Theon. That last thing hadn’t been meant as a joke, but he could see how Ramsay might think so. Perhaps his humor was too dry for his own good.

“I’ve been alone since I was a child,” he said to sober the mood.

The chuckle built in Ramsay’s chest; Theon could feel its rumbling through the strong hands that were slowly turning from deliciously painful to just plain painful. Ramsay threw back his head and let out a bark of laughter, followed by more giggling fits.

“I don’t…I’m being serious.” Theon tried to turn over, but the hands on his shoulders pinned him down. “H-hey, that’s too much.”

“ _You’re_ too much.” Ramsay scooted over and straddled Theon’s hips from behind. “Pouring your heart out to me like I give a fuck. Poor little lordling. Taken from one big castle to another. But he was so _lonely_ there, don’t you see.”

“What are you—get off!” Theon tried to buck him off, but Ramsay just laughed louder.

“Go on, squirm for me. I’ve been having fun watching you squirm all evening.”

“What are you doing?” Theon demanded again, though his voice sounded high-pitched and timid even to his own ears. “I thought we were—I thought you were—you said—”

“I lied.” Ramsay’s hands gripped the collar of the nightshirt, tight enough that Theon thought he meant to choke him. “Anyway, I think it’s time for you to shut up now. I’ve been letting you run your mouth to see if anything interesting might come out. It didn’t.” Then, with a rending tear, he ripped the fabric right in half.

Theon gasped as his back was exposed to the air. “What—?”

“Save it.” Ramsay tore the ruined nightshirt from his body, leaving him completely bare as he continued to struggle, his mind unable to grasp what had happened, how their conversation had turned so quickly into…into this. “You’ll have plenty of opportunity to use your voice in a moment or two. I’ll see if I can’t get you to scream yourself raw.”

Theon truly, truly began to panic when Ramsay let go with one hand to start undoing his belt. The bastard meant to…? No, surely not. “My father will hear of this!” he protested.

“Oh, you think you’ll scream loud enough for him to hear you all the way on the Iron Islands?” Ramsay laughed, and Theon could feel his hardness as he freed himself from his breeches.

Theon’s fingers dug uselessly into the pillow. It had been so soft before, but now it gave absolutely no purchase. “Please,” he begged. “Don’t do this. Please don’t.”

Ramsay just leaned over him, pinning him with his full weight. His breath was hot and wet against Theon’s ear. “I truly, truly want to apologize.” He lined himself up, and Theon clenched, knowing it would do him little good, would probably make things worse. “Apologize for not teaching you your place sooner.”


	11. Collected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nanjcsy's request: 
> 
> _Okay, Ramsay as the Collector, grabbing maybe Robb, Jon, Sansa, Arya and Theon. The others just can't quite make it to the killer's living collection. But there is just something about Theon._
> 
> This got out of control real fast. 
> 
> For anyone who's interested, [this](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844479/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) is the movie the prompt is based off. I've taken some liberties with the source material; Ramsay's more like a redneck version of the Collector here. General warning that this fic contains a lot of bloody imagery, but most violence happens off screen...er, page.

I

When Jon came back into consciousness, it felt like his entire being was centered on the pain in his mouth. The last thing he remembered was being strapped to an operating table while the man with the bloodstone earing had…

Jon tried to move his tongue, but there was no tongue to move. His tongue was _gone_. That was sobering. He jolted into a sitting position. He brought his hands to his lips, then dropped them, deciding he didn’t want to feel. He didn’t want to make the pain worse. He didn’t want to _know_.

His tongue was _gone_. That wasn’t…something that could be fixed. Even if he got out of here. Where was here? He’d been split up from the others, taken to the operating table, must have passed out from the pain of his goddamn _tongue-ectomy_ …

_Stay calm_ , he admonished himself. _Don’t panic_. Even though everything in him was already panicking. _I need to get my bearings so I can find the others, so we can get out of here_.

He was in a glass tank of some kind, in dark room with a single fluorescent light in the center. The tank was hemmed in on three sides by dirty glass and one wall of tiles, a space roughly the size of a prison cell. He edged to the side nearest the light. There wasn’t much to see: tiled floors, same as the walls, a drainage pipe. A shape that might have been a door.

He tapped on the glass. Solid. He’d have to break it to get to the door. With what? His cellphone might have done the job, but it had been taken from him when he’d been separated from the others and stripped of his clothing. At least the psychopath had given him a pair of scrubs to wear after his surgery, but no shoes. Nothing even remotely hard enough to shatter a pane that thick. And nothing in the room to offer an assistance either.

No, wait, there was something across the way. It was moving, or he never would have seen it. He squinted, and as it rocked briefly in and out of the light, he recognized the shock of red hair. Robb, pressed in the far corner of his own tank, rocking back and forth, hands clamped over his ears.

“Obb!” It came out at a croak, not really distinguishable as language. Jon clamped a hand over his mouth at the horror of it.

Robb didn’t look up.

Jon was hyper-aware of the stump of flesh at the back of his throat, what remained of his tongue. The man with the bloodstone earing had done to courtesy of cauterizing the wound so that he wouldn’t bleed to death—how thoughtful!—but it was fragile and would probably break with too much movement. He felt panic rising up his gorge and pushed it down with all his might. Robb was here. He needed to get his attention.

He began banging on the glass in earnest.

“Who’s there?”

Jon started at the voice. There was another tank against the adjacent wall. He’d dismissed it as empty until he saw Arya emerging into the light. She held her hands out in front of her, as if feeling the way, until she met the glass. There was something wrong with her eyes, but it was hard to tell in the darkness.

“Who’s there?” she repeated.

“On.”

“Jon?” Her face lit up in a smile. “Jon, where are you? I can’t see. He…he did something to my eyes.”

At the commotion, Robb finally looked up, and nearly jumped out of his skin. He looked like he hadn’t been aware they were there at all. But now that he knew, he threw himself against the glass and began pounding on it to get their attention. There was blood dribbling from his ears, and Jon had a sickening feeling he knew what had been done to him.

“Jon! Arya!”

“Robb?” Arya groped blindly towards Robb’s voice, but her hands only met with glass. “Robb, you’re here too?”

“What? I can’t…”

Jon frowned. So, this was their captor’s game. A man who couldn’t speak, a girl who couldn’t see, and a man who couldn’t hear. Put them together and see what happens.

He gave the room another thorough look, but there were only three tanks in the room—one for each of the three wise monkeys. Which left the troubling question—where were Sansa and Theon?

 

II

 

Theon was curled in on himself on the floor, trying to protect his fingers and feet. The man with the bloodstone earing had flayed the skin from his soles first, then his fingertips. He didn’t even know how he’d stayed conscious through it all, but he had.

He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know where the others were. They weren’t supposed to be here. For God’s sake, they’d been going to a party. One of Mr. Stark’s functions. Mr. and Mrs. Stark had taken Bran and Rickon in one car, the car that had presumably not blown out a tire on a stretch of deserted road. The tow truck driver, the man with the bloodstone earing, he’d…

There was a knock. Theon flinched and sat up, but it was only a small panel being slid back. He hadn’t even been aware it was there, since there was already a door on the other side of the room, beyond the glass of the tank. The panel was roughly the size of a doggy door. He could probably crawl through there. If he were an idiot.

“Hello?” he called out to whoever had opened it. “Who’s out there?”

Logically, if it were any of the others, they would have called out to him, right? They would be saying, “Theon, are you in there?” and “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.” That sort of thing. But there was nothing. Just heavy breathing from the other side. No, it wasn’t any of his friends. It was _him_.

He heard and then saw steel-tipped boots pacing across the floor through the tiny opening in the wall.

“Please.” Theon cringed in on himself. “What do you want from me?” He already knew. During the flaying, he’d asked every question, tried every reasoning tactic, made every plea. The man wanted one thing: He wanted Theon to suffer. “Could you at least tell me where my friends are?”

No answer.

“Are they alive?”

Just more pacing.

Theon sobbed to think Robb was dead, that he was all alone in this strange place with this man. What was he planning? Why hadn’t he reached in to drag Theon out yet? Whatever his game, Theon resolved he wouldn’t play if. He would not give this sick fuck the pleasure.

His resolve shattered when the smell of cooking food hit his nose. His stomach growled loud enough for the man outside to hear; Theon could hear a soft, mirthful chuckling.

How long had he been here? He didn’t know. There were no windows, no clocks. His cellphone had been taken from him, along with all his clothes. For all he knew, he’d been here for days. He’d had nothing to eat or drink since leaving the Starks’ house.

So, that was the game. The man was trying to lure him out with food. The most pathetic part was that Theon was falling for it. Slowly, he got up onto his hands and knees—well, wrists and knees, actually, trying to keep his weight off his fingers—and crawled to the opened panel and peered out.

On the other side was a room. Just a room, like something you’d see in someone’s grandmother’s parlor. There was a round little dining table with country-style chairs gathered around for a family of four. The windows were boarded up but also absurdly curtained in delicate white lace. There was an armchair in front of a television, and small kitchenette. On the wall hung some of the blandest landscapes Theon had ever seen; on the far wall hung one of those kitschy cat clocks, the one where the eyes moved back and forth. To Theon, it felt like it was watching him.

The man with the bloodstone earing was seated at the table, back turned towards Theon. From this angle so low on the floor, he looked bigger than Theon had remembered. He was eating, noisily. Chicken, it smelled like.

Theon swallowed and crept out into the open.

He went slowly, slower than a snail’s pace, and not just because he was terrified of being noticed. No matter how careful he was, his flayed feet and fingers still brushed against something every so often and sent him into bouts of white-out pain where he couldn’t even think, let alone move. The only advantage of the torturous crawl was that it gave him time to take in every detail. There didn’t appear to be a door, for instance, but there was a hall beyond the kitchenette. The windows had been boarded, but not so tightly that he couldn’t tell it was night outside, and so dark that they probably had to be somewhere in the country.

Of course, he didn’t truly expect he’d be able to sneak past his captor, but his heart still stopped when the man abruptly turned his head and _looked_ at him. Theon trembled and wanted to look away. The man regarded him for a mere moment, as if he were a curiosity, then went back to eating his drumstick.

Theon’s stomach gurgled. He inched closer to the man. “Please, I…I haven’t had anything to eat.”

The man continued eating.

Theon came closer still, feeling a bit put-off at being ignored. **_You’re_** _the one who kidnapped **me**_ , he wanted to yell. “Are you going to let me starve? Is that it?”

The man sighed, took one last bite of chicken, and held out the bone for him. There were still bits of meat clinging to it. Theon took it, feeling oddly bitter and grateful at the same time. Mindful of his feet, he began to climb into one of the empty chairs to eat.

That set the man off. He stood so quickly that his own chair fell over. Then he was grabbing Theon’s hair and pulling him from the table, forcing him down on the ground, pushing his face into the carpet. Theon thrashed and screamed as his fingers brushed against the rough carpeting. Everything, absolutely everything, was blotted out for a brief moment, and when he came to, the man was putting something around his neck. A rope? A piano wire? Whatever it was, it was cold and…heavy. There was a click and the man stepped back without pulling it any tighter.

Theon lay sprawled out on the floor, trying to regain his breath and wits. It felt like the collar was weighing him down. A collar, that’s what it was. His fingers itched to find out exactly what he’d been collared with, but his nerve endings were already shot beyond what they could handle.

The man walked away with the thudding of heavy boots and came back a moment later. He placed something on the floor with a clatter. Theon craned his neck to see a ceramic bowl with black paw prints. In blocky letters read the words “Kyra Bolton.” The man knelt, retrieved the chicken bone—which had skittered away under the table—and dropped it into the dog dish.

Theon slowly sat up.

The man was watching to see what he would do.

Theon sat staring at the bowl for a moment. “Bolton?” he said. “Is that your name?” And here he’d thought the Starks were the only ones dorky enough to call their dogs by their family name; they all wore collars that named them “Grey Wind Stark” or “Lady Stark.” The man did not answer, but Theon supposed “Bolton” was better than “the man with the bloodstone earing.”

The collar, the dish…Theon knew what he was supposed to do. The question was, was he really that desperate yet? The coiling in his guts told him that yes, yes he was. Placing a hand on either side of the dish, bracing with his wrists, he bent down and took the chicken bone in his mouth. The meat chunks were tender and slid easily off the bone. He cried as he ate, from relief and humiliation and pain.

He froze when he felt a hand on his head. “Good boy,” Bolton said.

 

III

 

“What’s going on? I can’t see,” Arya said, sounding angry rather than scared. Though Jon wouldn’t have faulted her for sounding scared. _He_ was scared.

Since Arya couldn’t see him and he couldn’t call out to her, that left only eye contact with Robb. He pointed to his mouth to indicate that he couldn’t talk; Robb pointed to his ears to indicate that he couldn’t hear, even if Jon were able to talk. Then Jon pointed to Arya and covered his eyes, indicating her problem. “Arya, Jon can’t speak,” he said in a voice with absolutely no volume control. “And he says you can’t see?”

“If he can’t talk, how can he _say_ anything?” Arya demanded peevishly.

Robb, of course, couldn’t hear her, so he continued speaking. “Did you both get notes too?”

“Notes?” Arya asked.

Jon shook his head.

Robb turned and retrieved a sheet of paper. Using his palm, he pressed it flat against the glass to show a picture of a monkey with its hands over its ears. The message read, “Hear no evil.” “You didn’t get one of these?”

Jon hadn’t really been looking for anything like that. He turned in place and searched the floor, and sure enough, there was a note for him too, folded up so tightly that he would have missed it if Robb hadn’t pointed it out. He unfolded it.

“What’s it say?” Robb asked.

Jon held it up to show a picture of a monkey with its hands over its mouth and the words, “Speak no evil,” scrawled across the top.

“I’m guessing Arya’s monkey says, ‘See no evil.’”

“I have a monkey now?” Arya demanded.

Jon pointed to the smaller printing across the bottom, since Robb seemed to be focusing on the wrong thing. Robb squinted and shook his head. “That’s too small for me to make out, Jon.”

“That’s what she said,” Arya said.

Jon sighed. In a finely-typed print was the message, “There’s a hammer in the girl’s cell.” Whoever had typed it— _yeah, whoever that could be_ —had meant it to be too small for anyone but Jon to read. That was the game. Stuck with the knowledge they needed but no way to communicate it. Well, shit, he’d always been terrible at charades but…

He began mimicking a hammer in one hand and pounding it against the glass.

Robb’s brow furrowed. “Break the glass?”

Jon nodded, then pointed to Arya.

“You want Arya to break the glass?”

“I tried,” Arya said. “It’s not as easy as they make it look in movies.”

Jon shook his head and tried again. Okay, start with something simple. He took out his invisible hammer again and simply held it up for Robb’s scrutiny.

“Jon, it…it kinda looks like you’re giving someone a hand job.”

“Yeah, Jon, how’s that going to help?”

Jon dropped his pose with a frustrated sigh. Fine, no charades, but he did have another trick up his sleeve. It just wasn’t one he was looking forward to using, since it might very well kill him if he wasn’t careful. He could try biting through his hand, but the problems there were twofold. 1.) People often underestimated the sheer force you had to use to bite through human flesh and 2.) no way was that going to provide enough blood for the full message.

He took in a deep breath, steeled himself, and then quickly jabbed two fingers into his mouth. It was so quick, he didn’t register the feeling of no tongue in his mouth, and the pain didn’t come until he’d broken through the cauterized wound. Blood came pouring out of his mouth, and though he had no tongue, his voice box still worked quite well. He screamed.

“Oh Gods!” Robb yelled.

“What?” Arya demanded, definitely sounding scared now. “What’s wrong? Jon?”

Jon let the pain ride out until it was manageable. Then he dipped his fingers into the rivulet running down his chin and began writing across the glass, backwards for Robb’s benefit. _Ary hs hmmr_. Because why bother with vowels?

Robb mouthed the words out. “Arya…has a hammer?”

Jon nodded.

“Arya!”

“I heard you the first time.” Arya got down on all fours and began feeling around, methodically going over every square inch. “I already searched everywhere when I woke up. I didn’t feel anything.”

Jon waved to get Robb’s attention. With his blood-smeared fingers, he indicated the glass walls.

“Jon says the hammer might not be on the floor. It might be fixed to the walls.”

Arya got up on her knees and began feeling around again.

“I can see there’s no hammer on that side,” Robb called to her. “Try the wall to your right…no, your _other_ right.”

Working awkwardly, Arya felt her way to the back wall. Jon could no longer make out what she was doing, but a few moments later, he heard the shattering of glass. The entire tank gave way around her and she stumbled out onto the tiled floor, bare feet brushing through the glass shards. “I’m free,” she said. “Robb, tell me where to go.”

“Over here!” Even though he couldn’t hear her, Robb could at least see that she had gotten out. “Follow the sound of my voice!”

“There’s no danger of me not hearing you,” she called back, feeling her way forward with the hammer in one hand. “You’re screaming at the top of your lungs.”

“More to your left! Left! Just a little bit more! There!”

Arya’s fingertips brushed his tank. “That you?”

“You’ve got it!”

She swung the hammer back and brought it smashing into the glass. It took a few swings, but eventually she was able to break through to him. He didn’t wait for the tank to shatter. He rushed through the hole she’d made and wrapped his arms around her. She hugged back, and then the both of them were collapsing to their knees, now bloody from bits of broken glass. Arya’s sobs rang off the tiled floors and ceilings. Jon couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her cry.

If Robb couldn’t hear her, he could certainly feel her shaking in his grasp. He ran a hand through her hair. “Shh,” he hushed, naturally going to a more reasonable volume. “Shh, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” Arya protested. “Where are we?”

Robb seemed to be made of ice as he let her go and took the hammer from her unresisting grasp. “We still need to get Jon out, and then we need to find Sansa and Theon.”

“They’re…they not here?”

Jon stepped back from the wall as Robb broke him free. The tank shattered around him, and he found himself lunging at Robb, wrapping him in a tight hug, smearing blood all over them in the process. Robb tore off a bit of his hospital scrubs and handed them to Jon. “Here, try to stem the bleeding. I want you to lead Arya out of here.”

Jon shook his head.

“You’ll bleed out if you don’t get medical help soon, and Arya needs to get out of here too.”

Jon grabbed Robb’s arm and tugged.

“No, I’m not leaving Sansa and Theon behind. You two need to get out of here and call for help.”

Jon began to shake his head again, but then Arya came stumbling over, drawn by Robb’s overly loud voice. “No, we’re not leaving you, Robb. We’re coming with you. We’re—”

Jon grabbed hold of her wrist and began pulling her along. Robb was right. She needed to get out of here. He paused at the door, afraid it would be locked. When he tried it, it swung open, its hinges a bit rusty but otherwise offering no resistance. Of course not. They’d passed the psycho’s test. He’d been _hoping_ they would escape. Did that mean they were free to go? Or was it simply the first in a long line of tests?

Arya protesting behind him, Jon turned back to Robb. No words passed between them, but they still understood.

_Be careful._

_You too._

 

IV

 

The collar was connected to the wall by a thick chain, which Bolton used to drag Theon across the floor. Theon, for his part, gave little resistance. Digging his feet or hands in would be agony, and there wasn’t much else he could do besides. They weren’t going anywhere far, just the armchair in front of the TV. Bolton sat and pulled Theon to the foot of the chair.

At first Theon thought the man meant to use him as a footstool, but then he tugged upwards, pulling Theon to his knees. A big hand pushed his head down, until his cheek was resting against Bolton’s thigh. Theon’s breath came in rasps as he imagined what the man wanted, but Bolton didn’t do anything else, just ran a hand through his hair over and over again. “Good boy.”

“Is this your plan?” Theon asked. “You’re going to keep me as your dog?”

Bolton continued to pet him.

“That’s insane, you know. You’ve just kidnapped five people. That’s not something people are going to ignore.”

More petting. No answer.

“I guess you don’t talk a lot.”

“Mm.” A rumbling noise of agreement.

“Can you at least tell me if my friends are still alive?”

No answer. The hand scratched behind his ear.

“Please.” Theon didn’t know what else to do. No matter how much he’d pleaded or begged before, while strapped to the operating table, this man had remained entirely unmoved. Between screaming as his skin had been peeled back, he’d tried appealing to the man’s sympathy, then his greed, then his fear, all of which had been met with complete and utter indifference. Bolton had no empathy; he didn’t want money; he wasn’t afraid of the cops, or anyone else apparently, finding him. But now Theon knew something he _did_ want. “I…I promise to be your dog,” he began. “I’ll be a good dog for you, if you let my friends go.”

The hand in his hair stilled.

Maybe that was the key. If he behaved and put up no resistance, if he became a “dog,” then Bolton might let the others go. They would get help. Robb, at least, would come back for him, he was sure. If it meant submitting himself to this…beast, then he’d do it, though he shuddered to think what would be asked of him.

He lifted his head towards the hand and tentatively gave it a lick.

Bolton smiled, so Theon did it again. The taste of salt on his skin was harsh, but he lapped at it like a loyal dog showing appreciation for his master.

Bolton patted his thighs, a universal “come here” gesture for dogs. He wanted Theon up in his lap, but Theon pulled back. “My friends,” he said.

Bolton’s smile fell away and he gave a harsh yank on the chain, pulling Theon bodily into his lap. He tapped his chin, indicated Theon should lick there.

Theon shuddered. “I will. I’ll use my tongue anywhere you want.” He tried to channel his bedroom eyes as he ground himself against his captor. That earned a pleased moan from the big man. “ _Anywhere_ ,” he reiterated. “But I’ll only cooperate if you let my friends go.” _If they’re still alive_. “Then I’ll do _whatever_ you want. No objections.”

Bolton thought for a moment.

Then he stood up, abruptly knocking Theon to the ground. This time, Theon was better prepared, and instead of throwing out his arms to cushion his fall, he curled himself into a tight ball, protecting his flayed fingers and feet. His landing was rougher that way, but overall less painful. He lay there for a second, waiting for Bolton to start kicking him or dragging him somewhere else for punishment. Instead, Bolton strode from the room and disappeared down the narrow hallway.

Theon had no idea what to think. Now would be the optimal time to escape, he supposed. Or at least do a little more reconnaissance for when the proper time _did_ present itself. He scooted forward using the same technique he’d used to creep from the box—knees and wrists. The chain was bolted to the wall near the table and had just enough give to allow him to peer into the hallway beyond the kitchenette. There was nothing but white-painted walls, cut off abruptly by a corner. Nothing else to see.

Theon went to the windows next and peered out through the gaps. It was too dark to see much, but he thought he could make out a porch with overgrown grass forcing its way up through the floorboards. If he could get one of these boards loose, he might be able to open the window and escape. Of course, the matter of _how_ he was going to escape from there, especially with his feet in their current condition, especially leashed to the wall as he was, would require more thought.

Fine. If he couldn’t run, his next option was to take this Bolton bastard out. He searched the room for something heavy, something he could use to bash the psycho’s brains in when he came back, or maybe something sharp, like a knife. He began crawling towards the kitchen, hoping Bolton had left the biggest, sharpest meat cleaver somewhere he could grab.

Never let it be said that Theon Greyjoy went down without a fight.

 

V

 

Jon ran, dragging Arya behind him. “Hey, slow down,” she kept saying, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. The bleeding in his mouth was getting worse and Arya…he wouldn’t let that psycho get his hands on Arya again. Or any of them, if he could help it.

They ran through narrow hallways, more like tunnels, really, dark and barely lit with flickering fluorescent lights. Jon could hear a generator working somewhere in the building. Was this place off the grid, then? It seemed the man with the bloodstone earing had spent years setting up this compound, if not actually using it. Then again, the bloodstains on the wall told him they were not the first “guests” to be hosted at Chateau de Psychopath.

He remembered Old Nan’s stories about the boogey man, who hid in the closet or under the bed and would steal away naughty children in the dead of night. This was worse than anything he had imagined as a child, cowering under the blankets with Robb. This was real, though it certainly didn’t feel like it.

Behind him, Arya grunted as one of her feet gave out under her. Jon fell back to help her up, and just as he did, a shotgun blast filled the hallway. It took Jon a moment to register, but the smell of gun smoke and the telltale bullet hole in the wall right where his head had been a second earlier confirmed. The place was booby-trapped. He must have hit a tripwire, and the only thing that had saved him from gaining a new hole in his head was Arya’s stumbling.

Arya was shrieking, “What was that? What was that?”

Jon knelt down and put his hands on her shoulder.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Jon…don’t tell Robb, but…I’m scared.”

Jon put his head on her shoulder so that she could feel the motion of him nodding. Then he was pulling her back to her feet. They couldn’t rest here long, but now that he knew that there were, indeed, other “tests” awaiting them, perhaps they should choose their steps a little more closely.

 

VI

 

Robb had no idea where he was. The hallways were narrow and mazelike, and everything was the same shade of white. The only way he could mark his progress was by the intermittent bloodstains on the wall. _Okay, haven’t seen_ that _splatter before, must not have been down this hallway yet_.

It was frustrating beyond words not being able to call out for Sansa or Theon. He wouldn’t be able to hear them answer back, and the only thing he’d accomplish by yelling out loud would be drawing that psychopath down on his location. So that left him with only his eyes, and the tingling certainty that they were both still here, alive.

His ears were ringing with phantom sounds; he swore he could still hear the rushing of blood from inside. The man with the bloodstone earing had punctured both his eardrums with a scalpel, and _that_ had made a definite noise. Like the sound of tearing paper. Robb prayed it would not be the last thing he ever heard.

_This is all my fault_ , he cursed himself. _If I hadn’t been so quick to get to the party, I wouldn’t have trusted the first tow truck driver who came along_. Which meant that everything that had happened was his responsibility. Jon losing his tongue, Arya losing her eyes, Sansa and Theon… _No, don’t think like that. I’d know if something happened to them. Something…_

He came to a rusty door with a cloudy porthole. A quick glance both ways down the hall told him he was alone. Carefully, hands to his eyes, he peered in. It was a room similar to the one they’d escaped from earlier, all tile and pipe and what looked to be another tank. And in the tank…that red hair! Sansa was in there, sitting with her back towards the door, pressed as tightly into the corner as she could manage.

“Sansa!”

He pulled the door open, relieved to find that, like the other one, it wasn’t locked. It must have made a terrible sound, because Sansa spun around as he entered. His heart caught in his throat. She saw where he was looking and quickly threw her hands over her face. Her jaw was moving; she was trying to tell him something. He sank down to be at her level and pressed his hand flat against the glass.

“It’s okay,” he said, or hoped he said. The words _sounded_ right vibrating through his skull, but he couldn’t be sure. “It’s okay, Sansa, I’m here.”

She continued to talk as tears formed in her eyes. And it looked like she’d already been crying for quite a while.

Robb shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t hear you.” He pointed to her ears, and her face paled. “Guess he cut something from all of us.” He laughed and felt it turn into a sob halfway through. “Don’t worry, Sansa, I’ll get you out of there. Everything’s going to be fine. But first, uh…have you seen Theon?”

She nodded.

“Where?”

She began talking before realizing her error.

“Um…Jon used blood to communicate.”

Sansa was still for a moment. Slowly, she took her hand away from her face, revealing the missing chunk of her nose. Robb held it together as he took in his sister’s face. If he didn’t flinch, she’d know it wasn’t that bad, that she could have her pretty face back with a few plastic surgeries, which was more than could be said for Jon or Arya.

Not the three wise monkeys, then— _see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil_. No, there were only _three_ monkeys and _five_ of them. Five senses. Robb’s hearing; Arya’s sight; Jon’s…tongue, his taste; Sansa’s nose. Where did that leave Theon? How did you cut away someone’s sense of touch? Gods, he hoped he wouldn’t find out, that it wasn’t already too late for his best friend.

Sansa had seen him, though, which meant he could still be alive somewhere.

Her entire face was an inkwell of blood, though it seemed mostly dried by now. She ran one of her slender fingers through the still-wet blood oozing down the cleft of her lip and, with a shaking hand, brought it up to write on the glass.

“Took,” Robb read. “The man with the bloodstone earing took him? Is that what you’re saying?”

She nodded.

“Did you see where?”

She shook her head.

“Okay, okay.” Robb stood and reached for the hammer he’d been carrying with him. “Stand back, Sansa. I’m getting you out of there, okay?”

She stepped back, but then her gaze was locked somewhere behind him and her mouth was opening in, for him, a silent scream. He whirled in time to meet the psycho’s fist with his face. Then everything went black.

 

VII

 

Theon held the knife in his hand, biting against the pain in his fingers. His grip needed to be tight and sure if he stood a chance of killing the bastard. The moment he came back, Theon would go for the jugular. It would be satisfying to watch him bleed out on his own carpet, and afterwards Theon would search him for the key to the collar. He considered maybe just disabling Bolton at first, then forcing him to tell where his friends were being kept, but in the end, Theon had discarded that idea. Better to escape on his own while he could and come back with help.

He tensed as he heard footsteps in the hallway. He’d been psyching himself up for this minute for half an hour—according to the cat clock—but now that the time had come, he was suddenly unsure if he’d be able to follow through. What if he missed? What is he only managed to injure Bolton but not disable him? What if it only made him angrier?

The footsteps were unsteady. Like he was lugging something heavy. Something for more torture? Or a dead body?

Theon swallowed thickly and gripped the knife tighter. The pain was enough to keep him focused and in the moment, because there was no way he could _think_ with his nerves on fire like that. Likewise, his feet were in absolutely agony as he crouched behind the counter, waiting…waiting…

Bolton appeared in the doorway, carrying a body over his shoulder. A body with a head of red hair. The body groaned and Theon dropped the knife. “Robb!” He sprang from his hiding place, heedless of the way the carpet tore into his soles. “Robb! What did you do to him?”

Bolton dropped Robb on the ground with a grunt. Robb sputtered and opened his eyes, looking like a man roused from a dream. Probably concussed.

Theon fell to his knees beside him. “Robb, are you okay?”

Robb just looked at him like he didn’t understand. He smiled, though, and reached out for his face. “Theon.”

Bolton kicked Theon away and placed himself between the two of them. When Theon tried to go around him, he yanked on the chain and drew him back. “You’ll be a good boy for me?” The most words he’d said so far.

Theon nodded numbly. “I will, but you have to let him go first. And I have to _see_ you let him go.”

Bolton nodded.

He stalked back over to Robb and grabbed him by the hair. Robb hissed as he was pulled to his feet. “I wasn’t going to keep him anyway,” Bolton said. He went over to the TV and flipped the switch on. The screen sputtered to life—a live camera feed from several different angles. Bolton pointed towards the camera facing a door and said, “Watch.”

Theon understood. Bolton was proving that he was going to let Robb go. He nodded, and the chain jingled against the collar.

Bolton smiled. “Good boy.” Then he dragged Robb away.

Theon crawled to the TV and sat watching. There were four cameras in total. One was pointed towards the exit, a sort of loading dock area. He could see Bolton’s tow truck, still hitching the car he and the Starks had been driving when they’d been taken. The second camera was pointed towards a tiled room full of broken glass. Even though it was in black and white, he could tell that the fresh smears on the floor and walls were blood. There didn’t appear to be anyone there. The third was pointed at an operating table. Whether it was the operating table Bolton had strapped Theon to earlier, he’d rather not contemplate. Worse was the idea that there was more than one operating room in this psycho’s lair.

The last camera showed _this_ room. It took him by surprise, but when he looked into the far corner, he saw the lens. He looked back to the television and studied himself. Naked, crouched on the ground, a thick collar and chain around his neck. He looked like a beaten dog, with its tails curled between its legs as it waited for the next kick. Was that really him? That pitiful-looking thing?

There was movement, and his eyes went back to the first camera. He saw the door open from the inside, and Bolton came out, dragging Robb behind him. Somewhere along the way, Robb had been blindfolded. Bolton pulled him roughly down the loading ramp, opened the back door of the Starks’ car, and forced Robb in. In the brief moment he could see inside, he caught glimpses of other bodies.

Bolton looked up at the camera and nodded. It seemed he could still see Theon, no matter where he was. He held up a hand, fingers spread out, thumb folded in to indicate the number four. Four, all four of his friends were accounted for, if the man could be trusted. Theon strained to be sure through the grainy image on the television. He could definitely make out Jon in the front seat—he’d recognize those unruly curls anywhere—also blindfolded. He _thought_ maybe he could see two smaller figures in the backseat. Arya and Sansa?

Bolton slammed the door closed on Robb and went to the truck. Before climbing in, he turned towards the camera once more. He motioned to the car, then to the dirty driveway stretching out behind him. Theon understood. He was going to drive them back to where he’d found them by the side of the road. The blindfolds were so they wouldn’t be able to find their way back here. At least, that’s what Theon hoped. For all he knew, Bolton was just going to drive them just off camera and then kill them all execution style.

He took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts away. _No, I have to trust him_ , he thought, _no matter how much I hate it_. _I’ll let him think he’s won, that I’ve become his submissive pet, and when his guard’s down, I’ll…_

Bolton’s eyes seemed to pierce straight through him. He knew what Theon was thinking. He _knew_!

There was no sound, but Theon could read his lips. “Good boy.”

 

Epilogue

 

Ramsay loved coming home. There was nothing like a dog to greet you at the end of a hard day. If only people could be so loyal and loving. The minute he sat down in his chair and flipped on the TV—switching to the local news for background noise—Reek came up and obediently laid his cheek on his thigh, whimpering pitifully.

He’d been a noisy puppy, howling at all hours of the day, barking when he was upset. But Ramsay was patient and had trained him and now there wasn’t a better dog anywhere. Even Kyra, who had been his old favorite. He’d of course since had her name scrubbed off the dog dish and put “Reek Bolton” on it instead; it just didn’t seem right to have Reek eating out of a bowl with the wrong name on it every day.

He’d had a lot of training to do. How to use the paper, how to sit and stay and heel, how to estimate the right amount of tranquilizer a new playmate needed—too much would kill the playmate, but too little wouldn’t put them to sleep for very long. Reek had never taken to cutting very well, but that was okay. Ramsay was beginning to understand that his talents lay elsewhere. Herding, for example. He was dying to see how his pet took to learning _fetch_.

Ramsay petted his head as they watched the news together.

Reek whined again, and Ramsay looked up to see what was bothering him. The anchorwoman was interviewing that redheaded asshole again. Gods, they’d been covering this story for _months_ now. Didn’t the press usually get bored by this point?

“Robb Stark,” the anchorwoman said, obviously at the tail-end of her story, “what words for you have for the man who kidnapped and held you and your siblings captive for over three days and who may still be holding your friend? What do you have to say to him, if he’s watching this now?”

Robb looked straight into the camera. “We’re still out there, looking for you. Every day.”

He had remarkable volume control. Ramsay remembered reading in the paper a week or so again that he’d regained most of the hearing in his right ear. Too bad. It just meant he’d have to try a more permanent technique on his next plaything.

“We’re _going_ to find you. It’s just a matter of time.”

Ramsay chuckled and Reek nuzzled against his thigh.

“If you let Theon go now, I’ll request mercy for you. But if you don’t…if we find you and you’ve hurt him _at all_ , then I promise…I promise I’ll make you feel every pain you’ve ever inflicted. On _anyone_. Do you understand? On—”

The signal cut out for a brief second, then returned to the newsroom.

“I’m getting word that we had to cut the interview short,” the anchorman in the studio said, finger to his earpiece as some higher up sent orders. “Robb Stark is not allowed to discuss the details of any ongoing investigations, but if you’ve seen either of these men—” One color photo and one black-and-white sketch flashed on the screen. “—please call the hotline number at the bottom of the screen. Police _are_ offering a reward for any useful information.”

Reek buried his face in Ramsay’s lap. It genuinely bothered him to see that old photograph of himself, smiling and acting like a person. He was embarrassed of the way he’d acted the first few weeks he’d come to live with Ramsay, before the training had really caught on. He’d tried taking out the nails in the boards covering the window; he’d tried unscrewing the bolt of his chain from the wall using a butter knife; he’d even tried stabbing Ramsay in his sleep. He’d learned eventually. He may be missing fingers, toes, and teeth, but he’d learned. Now he was just as meek as could be. The perfect, house-trained pet.

Ramsay stroked the top of his matted head, and Reek looked up at him with large eyes. “Good boy,” Ramsay murmured. “Good boy.”


	12. Convinced

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HappyDagger made this request: 
> 
> _Theon is some place Ramsay can easily speak with him but can't kidnap him and Ramsay has to try to talk him into coming back somehow. (In a locked car he's started or in an airport waiting in the security line after boarding passes have been checked? Something like that?)_
> 
> Experimental piece...away!

“Re~ek.”

“No, no. That’s _not_ my name.”

“Reek, open this door.”

“Go away. Robb will be back soon, and if he catches you talking to me…”

“Oh, out for a little Sunday drive with _Robb_ , are we? It’s nice that he takes you out of the house once a week. Though I should probably report him for leaving you in the car with the windows rolled up. It _is_ very hot out here.”

“St-stop that. I’m not listening to you.”

“Come on, now, Reek, don’t be like that. I’ve missed you. Haven’t you missed me?”

“…No.”

“You don’t sound so sure of yourself.”

“My counselor says you’re a bad influence. She says what you did to me was abuse and that I could probably take legal action against you.”

“Oh, I’m sure you don’t believe that. Sure, we had a few spats, but I always made it up to you, didn’t I?”

“N-no. I’m not listening to you. I’m _not_. I’m not Reek anymore. I’m not part of your sick roleplay.”

“Won’t you at least roll the window down? Just a little?”

“It’s electric. Robb has the key.”

“So you would roll it down, if you had the key?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Reek, don’t—what do you think you’re doing? Are you…are you trying to _hide_ from me?”

“Go away. I’ll scream.”

“You’ll scream?”

“It’s a crowded parking lot. Someone will notice and call the cops on your ass.”

“Is that why you’re sitting here in the car all alone? Did all the people inside scare you?”

“Shut up! You’re the reason I have anxiety issues now.”

“Oh, you’ve developed anxiety issues? Did your counselor tell you that?”

“I’m taking medication for it. I’m getting better. I’m happy with Robb, and you should just accept that.”

“I can’t accept that because it’s a lie. Come on, I’m not playing around here, Reek. Open the Gods damned door or I’ll break it open. You know I will.”

“Someone will notice.”

“That’s what you want, right? You want someone to come over here and rescue your worthless ass. Right now you’ve got Robb, but what happens when he gets tired of you and moves on to the next one? Who’s going to rescue you then?”

“That won’t happen. Robb loves me, and I love him. But I _have_ moved on from you.”

“You’re really trying my patience now, Reek.”

“I-I’m sorry, I…no, I’m not sorry. You can’t…you can’t bully me anymore. We’re not _together_ , Ramsay. Accept it and move on.”

“Okay, okay, all right. Fine. You’ve left me. It’s been, what…two months? Oh, who am I kidding, I’ve been keeping track of every day. I’ve _missed_ you Reek. And it hurts me to think that Robb is poisoning your view of what we had.”

“He’s not poisoning it. You did that yourself.”

“Oh, come on, baby. You didn’t enjoy being with me?”

“…”

“Not even a little bit?”

“I guess…in the beginning it was…nice.”

“It _was_ nice, wasn’t it?”

“You were _nice_ to me then. You weren’t always putting me down, calling me _Reek_.”

“You _liked_ my pet names for you.”

“The counselor says you were preying on my insecurity and compulsive need to be liked.”

“He sounds like a moron.”

“ _She_.”

“She sounds like a bitch.”

“Was…was any of it true, what you said to me back then? That I was…special and that you loved me?”

“It never stopped being true. It hurt me so much to see how you thought of yourself back then, that you were useless and alone. It’s what drew me to you. And I see it now, through this window—what tint is this? This can’t be legal—but just look at you, sitting there, waiting for _Robb_ to come back with the car keys. He left you here alone.”

“I asked to be left.”

“Because you don’t know what’s best for you. You’d probably sit here all day until you collapsed from heat stroke, waiting for your knight in shining armor. You need someone to tell you what to do. I bet you wish Robb had ordered you to go into the store with him. Don’t look away from me, I can see it on your face. All this seeming ‘freedom’ and where has it gotten you? Locked in a car. Unable to hide. It’s so unfair of him to put this burden on you.”

“Please…go away, Ramsay.”

“Oh, don’t cry, Reek. Don’t cry.”

“I’m not. I just…maybe it _is_ a little hot in here.”

“Then open the door.”

“…”

“All right, I get it. I’m bothering you on your outing. I can take a hint. But you know where to find me, right? I imagine you still have my number, even though you’ve blocked mine? Right. So if you ever feel the urge, your old collar’s still hanging on the back of my door."

"..."

"If you’re ever interested…”

“…”

“See you around, yeah?”

“…Ramsay, wait.”


	13. Eased

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kmsimms requested: 
> 
> _I really love how you write Ramsays 'caring' side. Maybe you could have Ramsay go a little too far while hurting Reek and not realise until it's too late for anyone to do anything to save him?_
> 
> There might be feels in this one.

This wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening. Internal bleeding? Perforated bowels? What were these words Maester Tybald was saying?

Ramsay’s head spun and he braced himself against the wall.

Tybald was asking him a question now. What had he said?

“I said, has he eaten anything odd lately?”

“Odd,” Ramsay repeated, incredulous. “He’ll eat anything he can get his hands on.”

Tybald’s mouth made a thin, tight line, the way it did when he disapproved but didn’t dare say anything. “When was the last time you fed him, my Lord?”

“I…” Ramsay ran a hand through his hair, thinking. “I gave him chicken.” It had been a game. What would Reek do for the leftovers on his plate? Quite a bit, actually. He’d eaten everything, _everything_ once Ramsay had placed it on the floor. That had been… “A week ago?” he suggested.

The shape on the bed moaned as it turned over.

“Hmm.” Tybald nodded. “It was probably a bone that punctured his bowels, fairly high up in the intestines, I’d wager. I’m amazed the boy’s made it this long.” He began packing his tools into his little bag, and why was he doing that!?

Ramsay forcefully blocked the maester’s tools with his hands. “You’re not done here.”

Tybald matched his glare, perhaps the boldest the man had ever been. “There’s nothing more I can do. The corruption has gotten into his blood.”

“But…but there must be… _something_ you can do. You haven’t tried _everything_.”

“There’s nothing to be done,” Tybald bit out. “Perhaps if you’d come to me sooner…” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Ramsay did the same; if he didn’t, he was going to give into his urge to snap this man’s neck. “All I can do now is ease his way…” His eyes flickered to Reek’s form. Reek moaned and rolled over again, seeking relief to the fever that burned away at his body from within. “If that’s what you desire, of course.”

Ramsay was dumbstruck. “You’re…serious, aren’t you? He’s really…?”

“Tonight, most likely,” Tybald answered with a slow nod. “Shall I fetch some milk of the poppy?”

Now it wasn’t just Ramsay’s head that was reeling, but the whole world. He gripped the table to keep himself upright. “Y…yes,” he managed to get out.

Tybald nodded. No judgements, no questions about why a man of Ramsay’s…inclinations would want to allow him victim comfort in the final hours of life. He must have guessed, if he was willing to offer such a thing in the first place. He simply finished packing his tools quickly and left with a respectful bow. “I’m sorry, my Lord.”

Ramsay stood still for several moments. But then Reek moaned and tossed again. Ramsay broke from his numbness and ran to the side of the bed. “Don’t worry, Reek. Don’t listen to that blathering old man. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

But Reek didn’t understand and hadn’t been listening. His eyes kept drifting all over the room as Ramsay sat down and cupped his face. Reek’s skin was paler and clammier than it had ever been, covered in a sheen of thick sweat, which had already drenched the covers. His lips moved, but no words came out. He looked like a broken baby bird that had been pushed from its nest, naked and pink and scrawny. How had Ramsay not noticed?

“Why didn’t you say something, Reek?” He gripped the haggard face tighter, as if he could keep Reek from slipping away from him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were…?” Why hadn’t he noticed? He’d written Reek’s listlessness off as laziness and had taken one of his thumbs for the impertinence.

Reek held that maimed hand out how, grasping for something only he could see. Ramsay took his hand and gave it a soft squeeze. Reek…smiled, just the tiniest little smile. “‘m sorry,” he murmured, so softly that Ramsay had to lean in to hear. “‘m sorry, I…”

He was having trouble speaking, so Ramsay shushed him. “It’s alright.”

Reek’s head lolled against the pillow, and tears came to his large, glassy eyes. “You…forgive me?”

“Of course I do.”

“You…you don’t hate me?”

“No, of course not.” He brushed the sweaty hair from Reek’s forehead. “You’re my best friend.” He was glad they were alone, but if they hadn’t been, and if anyone had had the gall to _laugh_ , he would have cut their damn throat out. _Reek_ is _my best friend_ , he realized. _He’s_ mine _. I_ made _him. Me, myself_.

Reek’s grip became just ever-so-tighter on his hand. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Now and always?”

“Now and always, precious.”

“‘m glad. Glad I got to…before I…” Reek winced. “Hurts.”

“I know, sweetling, I know.”

“I-I don’t think I—”

The door opened and Maester Tybald came back in bearing a cup. “I made enough to ease him through the night,” he said, handing the cup over to Ramsay. “In his current state, the effects should take hold fairly quickly. I can make some more if he’s still around come morning.”

“Thank…you.” It felt odd and oddly genuine to speak those words he normally gave only to his father, and only then begrudgingly. “Leave us,” he finished gruffly to chase away the sensation.

The maester nodded and left again, closing the door gently behind him.

The wood crackled in the fireplace, and Reek’s body was so wet with sweat that Ramsay considered putting the fire out. But no, Reek was also shivering so badly that his teeth clacked together. Ramsay slid onto the bed and gathered the fragile body in his arms, utterly limp in his grasp and easy to manipulate. Ramsay propped his head up and brought the cup to his lips.

Reek tried to turn his head, but Ramsay held his jaw tight. “Drink it for me, sweetheart.” He tilted the cup up and stroked Reek’s throat as the liquid poured into his mouth. He was so thin that Ramsay could feel the swell of his throat as he swallowed. He paused only twice to allow his Reek a chance to catch his breath, but didn’t set the cup aside until the very last dregs had been drained. “There, so good for me.”

Reek looked happy to serve, that small, uncertain smile still playing on his face.

Just as the maester had said, it didn’t take long for the milk of the poppy to do its work. Reek was relaxing into his arms as the shuddering went out of his body. He curled like a child against Ramsay’s chest.

“Does that feel better?”

Reek nodded, looking like it took all the effort in the world for that tiny gesture. “‘m tired.”

“Won’t you stay awake with me a little longer?” Ramsay gave him a gentle rock to keep him from nodding off. “I’d like the company.”

“The only one…who ever…wanted me…”

A rasping gasp seized him, and Ramsay patted his back.

“I’m scared.” His mangled hands grabbed uselessly at Ramsay’s shirt. “I don’t…I don’t want to go.”

“Then stay!” Ramsay felt himself getting angry and fought down the urge to shake some sense into his Reek. “I do _not_ give you permission to go. Fight it. You’re stronger than they say you are, I know it. When the Stranger comes for you, spit in his face. Remember that? You spat in my face when you first got here.”

“Did I do that?” Reek’s voice was so, so meek. “I…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Shush, it’s fine. It was part of our game, remember?”

“I shouldn’t have left.” Tears came streaming passively down his face; it seemed he didn’t even have the energy to blink them away. “I’m sorry I left you.”

“No, no, shush, it’s fine, it’s fine. You haven’t left yet.”

“I haven’t…left yet?”

“No, no. You’re still here, with me. You have a choice.”

“I…haven’t left yet?” he repeated into the fabric of Ramsay’s shirt. “Then…perhaps it was a dream. A nightmare? I dreamt…I dreamt that I was someone I’m not.” The milk of the poppy was slurring his words. “I dreamt that everyone turned their backs on me and…and that I deserved it. I dreamt I was alone.”

“You’re not alone.”

“No. Not alone.” Reek sighed happily. “Thank you, R—”

“Shush,” Ramsay hushed, now rocking him gently. “Be quiet.”

Reek was.

Ramsay held him like that for several hours, until the tiny chest stopped moving against his own. And even then he continued to hold him, until the fire died away and only ashes were left.


	14. (Un)Moved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last, but certainly not least, for TrueOrFalse:
> 
> _How about one where Theon is newly broken into Reek and Ramsay finally releases him from the dungeons and lets him sleep in the kennels for the first time? I just love significant little moments like that. :D_

The door opened and Ramsay came in holding a lantern.

“What’s your name?”

He’d said yesterday that his reward would be based on the appropriate response. “Reek,” Reek responded, lowering his head.

“Are you sure?”

Reek nodded. “Rhymes with meek.”

“There’s no prince in here?”

“No, my Lord. No prince. Just a lord and a…a nothing.”

The light from the lantern went lower as Ramsay knelt down. Something jingled, and then the manacle around Reek’s ankle fell away. It had been so long since he’d felt his skin there. It was raw to the touch and painful to _be_ touched. Was that the reward? No more chains?

“Get up.” Ramsay lifted the lantern as he got to his feet. “Come with me.”

So…that was the reward? He was going somewhere?

Reek was only able to get to his feet by leaning against the wall. His legs felt too numb to walk, but he found he could do it if he didn’t think too much. Just follow Ramsay.

They left the dank little cell behind. The air just out in the hallway felt cleaner, even though they were still in the deepest pit of the Dreadfort’s dungeons. Reek took as deep a breath as his lungs could manage, then continued walking.

Ramsay led the way and expected Reek to follow. No guards, no escorts. Reek kept glancing around, expecting one of the Boys to jump out. But they never did. Nobody did. It was just the two of them, and the farther they got from the cell, the more nervous Reek got. This was some sort of trick. Was Ramsay expecting him to make a run for it or…?

Ramsay reached the only staircase leading in and out of the dungeons. Reek remembered Theon being pushed down them after his escape attempt with Kyra. Theon had been bad. He shouldn’t have tried to run. Theon would never climb back up those steps, but maybe…maybe Reek could?

Ramsay stepped back and ushered Reek past. “After you.”

Reek set his foot on the first step, then turned to look at Ramsay. He didn’t dare speak, so he asked with his eyes. _Is this what I should do? Is this right?_

Ramsay nodded, and slowly, Reek began up the stairs. He felt the other following close at his heels, the heat of the lantern now at his back. His feet scraped against the stones, brushing against the stumps of his missing toes, but they were too cold to feel—both the stones and his feet. He was so weak, his body didn’t want to keep climbing, but he forced himself. He’d learned well that if he didn’t push himself past his limits, then Ramsay would.

He reached the top step and stood completely still, unsure of what to do next. Ramsay simply swept around him and opened the door from the ring of keys at his belt.

Light came streaming through, and Reek threw up his mangled hands to block out the brightness of day. Had the world ever been this bright before? Had the colors been so intense? Was this his reward? He wanted to fall to his knees and thank Ramsay—no, Master!—for allowing him to see the outside world again. He’d thought he never would. He’d thought he’d die down there. He might yet, but at least he got to see the sky one more time beforehand.

But Ramsay simply blew the lantern out and continued walking. “Follow,” he snapped when Reek didn’t immediately come after him.

Reek obeyed, hobbling along.

There were people about, people who stopped and looked at them and wrinkled their noses against _him_. Reek supposed he didn’t smell very nice, but he could no longer tell. He’d been living in stale air for so long. He hurried after Master and gave a soft tug on his cloak. Ramsay whirled on him with an icy glare. Reek cringed back. “Do I smell bad, my Lord?”

“Repulsive.”

“Then I shall wash—”

“You shall do no such thing.” Ramsay placed a hand against his cheek, dirtying his glove. “What is your name?”

“Reek, my Lord. Reek. It rhymes with freak.”

“Good. I thought you’d forgotten for a moment.”

“No, my Lord, never. I’m Reek. _Your_ Reek.”

“Very good.” Ramsay patted his cheek. “You have to remember your name.”

“Yes, my Lord. My name is Reek. I won’t…I’m meant to be repulsive. Forgive me for thinking otherwise.”

“I’m going to show you to your new quarters, Reek.”

“My new…quarters?”

“Yes, your reward. Don’t worry. Your new roommates won’t be bothered by your stench.” He turned and began leading the way again.

 _This is a trick_ , Reek thought. _What does he mean by new roommates? Does he…does he intend to finally have me killed? Does he intend to put me in the ground with…with the others he’s killed?_ He almost sobbed to think of his shallow grave beside Kyra’s, where she was resting in the forest on the bank of the brook they’d been caught at. It wasn’t the ocean, where the Ironborn were supposed to be buried, but it wasn’t a dungeon, either. And in any case, Reek didn’t belong with the Ironborn. Even Theon hadn’t belonged with the Ironborn.

Ramsay didn’t lead him out in the forest, though. Instead, he brought him to a low-ceilinged building in the main courtyard near the stables: the kennels. The dogs were barking raucously as they entered, banging up against the bars of their cages and wagging their tails.

“They’re always so happy to see you,” Ben Bones said, greeting them.

Ramsay cocked his head towards Reek. “You have an empty cage?”

“I always do.” Ben crooked his finger and bid them follow him down the line of cages. The dogs barked as they walked by.

“These are your new roommates,” Ramsay explained, as if Reek hadn’t already figured it out. “Red Jeyne. Helicent. Jez. Grey Jeyne.” He named them, pointing as they passed.

Ben came to an empty stall and opened the door. “Will this do?”

“Is this the one I asked for?”

Ben nodded. “Moved Willow out yesterday, just to make room for your new bitch.” He cast his eyes on Reek, who shrank back.

“Good, good.” Ramsay waved his hand for Reek to come. Reek did. “I reserved this room special for you,” Ramsay said as he placed a hand on Reek’s bent back. “This way you’ll be right next to Kyra.”

“K-Kyra?”

The dog in the next kennel—a big, red bloodhound pup—leapt against the bars and wagged her tail at her name being called.

“Ah…Kyra,” Reek said with a nod, understanding. He bit into his lip with his broken teeth to keep from crying.

“It’s a rather nice place,” Ramsay continued. “Go in and have a look.” He gave a harsh push and Reek staggered headfirst into the low kennel.

There was straw here, which was a step up from the dungeon cell, even if it hadn’t been cleaned since the dog had been in here last. Still, it was warmer and softer than stone. There was no bucket, but then again, Ramsay had removed the bucket from his old cell several weeks ago, so Reek was used to living in his own filth. There were no chains, no manacles. It was dry and bright. It was wonderful.

“Well…how do you like it?”

“I like it very much, my Lord,” Reek replied without having to stretch that much. “Thank you. I’m not worthy of your kindness.”

“No…you’re not.” Ramsay slammed the cage door closed. “I’ll leave you to get settled.”

He and Ben left, talking lowly between themselves. Reek watched them go, listened to them go, then settled down into the straw to rest his weary body. Gradually, the sounds of the men drifted off and the dogs quieted down, though he could still hear Kyra panting in the kennel over. She must have been born about the time Kyra—the other Kyra, the Kyra who was bad, just like Theon had been—was killed. He didn’t want to think about how long it had been since then.

Reek sighed and closed his eyes. He could already feel the fleas beginning to bite and scratched at them idly.

After a few moments, he had to turn over. Rolling to his other side, he caught of a glimpse of something out of his eye. He sat up straight, blinking. No, it hadn’t been wishful thinking. The door to the kennel was slightly ajar. Ramsay must have slammed it too hard for it to close all the way.

He got up and crept over to it. He nudged the door, just to make sure. It swung open quite easily on well-oiled hinges.

Reek poked his head out and looked up and down the row of cages. Neither Ramsay nor Ben were anywhere in sight. He couldn’t even hear them anymore.

In the next cell over, Kyra barked happily.

Reek reached out and pulled the door all the way closed. Then went back to his bed to try to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> So, you may have noticed I've put a cap on this fic. Do not worry! I do intend to open it back up when I have the time. Long story short, something has come up, like a once-in-a-lifetime something ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°), and I'm going to be *very* busy for the next month. 
> 
> In the meantime, go ahead and leave a request in the comments. I'll be updating regularly again in April and will for sure have a new multi-chapter fic up by the time Season Six is over, so something to chase away the post-season blues. 
> 
> Thank you again for reading and writing in.


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